Emergence Campaign Webloghttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com
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Joining The Stampede – Ponies, Bio-Arcana, and Eclipsehttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/joining-the-stampede-ponies-bio-arcana-and-eclipse/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/joining-the-stampede-ponies-bio-arcana-and-eclipse/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 04:26:21 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20897]]>For today it’s a rather odd question; “Alzrius has written up several ponies recently. How do you think that their species, society, and Alicorn Ascension, works?”

Well why not? I know enough about the program and setting to speculate, and a few Google searches can help fill in the details as needed.

So lets see… It’s pretty obvious that the creatures of Equestria pretty much ALL use a lot of magic. While timberwolves and dragons are perhaps the most blatant about it, even the birds and normal-looking small animals are near-sapient and do some really odd things. Ponies are no exception. They pick up things with hooves, they heal with astounding speed, their genetics are more than a bit odd, and they’re incredibly resistant to injury. Having anvils and pianos falling on their heads from considerable heights is shaken off in short order, they crash into trees and through masses of rock without injury, and they are only briefly stunned by bolts of lightning. They still seem to be vulnerable to beestings, being smacked by other ponies and creatures, and similar menaces though, which is kind of odd. Perhaps the inherent magic of an attacking creature can partially overcome their defenses – which may explain their reliance on melee weapons.

So… pony biological systems all involve magic. Ergo, pony gestation involves magic – some sort of life-supporting effect to keep the infants magical systems working and (since any pony can have any kind of offspring) the ability to support and nurture all three basic types of pony magic – earth, pegasus, and unicorn.

As a pony develops greater reserves of magical power, all of it’s magical abilities can be expected to increase in power – if not all necessarily to the same extent.

Ergo, at some point, a female pony with enough power can be expected to start sustaining it’s own life with magic, becoming very difficult to harm or poison and resistant or immune to aging. As a female ponies ability to nurture all three types of magic within itself grows, eventually it will develop all three types of magic within itself – regardless of it’s original type.

Thus a female pony who develops sufficient magical power can be expected to hit a critical point and “ascend” to become an alicorn. Even if they do not do so, greater magical power can be expected to extend their lives. Male ponies probably lack that nurturing function – and so, while they may become powerful and long-lived, cannot ascend.

Even before that point, female ponies can be expected to survive prenatal issues, childhood accidents, and various illnesses more often than males, and to live longer lives – leading to some degree of sexual imbalance in favor of females.

It is possible that males – who seem to possess greater physical aptitudes than the females – also possess greater aptitudes for the more combative forms of magic than the females. This would be a rough parallel (which seems normal enough) with the behavior of earthly equines and would neatly explain the predominance of males in troop-level military roles in an otherwise female-dominated culture.

Of course, with magic, the development of skill and experience over time seems to outweigh most of the physical limitations of age. Thus, while young adulthood is generally the peak of physical prowess, magical prowess may continue to develop until senility sets in. Ergo, barring amazing natural talent, older females are likely to dominate the magical arts – likely including combat magic.

That’s a reasonably plausible theory. What kind of results will it lead to?

We can expect non-magical projectile weapons to be fairly useless – and therefore virtually unheard of.

We can expect the “military” to be fairly light-duty; it’s only real roles are 1) to keep things from surprising the powerful magic-users, and 2) to hold back monsters long enough for the powerful magic users to turn up and make them go away. For that… medieval-style armor and pointed sticks will do very nicely indeed.

That nicely explains why we see trains, engines, electrical devices – and weapons that are medieval at best.

We can expect most ponies to show one basic response to anything even remotely unexpected or frightening – to run to get behind the guards with the pointed sticks while they wait for the powerful magic users to take care of whatever-it-is.

Despite that tendency to flee, we can expect a willingness to live and wander about in unreasonably dangerous areas as long as the group is confident in their protectors.

So… we have creatures who are willing to live on the borders of the Everfree Forest, yet who will run in panic from a “stampede” of rabbits.

We can expect a primarily matriarchial society, organized around the most powerful magic users who are willing to defend the rest of the herd – and to see that even a bad leader, such as Sombra, can rule since even a noxious defender is better than none.
What male leaders there are will be more tenatively in charge; since they cannot become Alicorns, they have no obvious sign of authority – and they will be subject to aging.

Thus Shining Armor – while capable of generating extremely powerful shields and barriers – is somewhat tenatively a “prince”, possibly merely by virtue of marriage. Prince Blueblood may hold an honorary title – but it’s interesting to speculate that his magical talent (perhaps an ability to confuse or manipulate directions?) is powerful enough to make it worth putting up with his deficient social skills. After all… if he was really THAT useless, Celestia has had a thousand years practice in manipulating people, rules the country, and is considered a goddess. She really ought to be able to get him placed somewhere where he wouldn’t be so annoying.

The mechanisms that allow ponies to have three seperate forms, and to have members of any one group born to parents of any other group are… odd. Virtually any genetic explanation will have trouble explaining why, for example, Sweetie Belle resembles her sister Rarity so much, yet Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake are entirely different types in a family of earth ponies. To make it even worse, we have ponies being transformed by environmental factors – such various characters becoming Crystal Ponies for a time.

About the only way to sort that out is more magic. It’s hard to say what governs it though; there really isn’t enough data to even speculate.

That does make another problem though. The three major pony types are so heavily interdependent that it’s hard to see how they could get along separately – or how their interbreeding would work if they were actually genetically separate. Yet the Hearths Warming Eve play suggests that they were separate tribes.

Of course, the Hearths Warming Eve play may not be any more historically accurate than the Morte de Arthur – especially since it’s describing a piece of history that predates Discord’s reign. Given that… I don’t think that much of an explanation is required.

Overall, the theory fits the evidence about as well as can be expected for a cartoon. I can’t guarantee that I’ve taken all the details into account since I don’t know them – but that gives us a reasonable basis for pony society and a number of it’s oddities as well a theory to extrapolate from.

Kevin and Kell is probably the most prominent and oldest strip of this kind, and sets the pattern for most of the rest – but it’s a cartoon, and doesn’t need to make any sense. Thus:

The major characters all have plot immunity, and pretty much always win. Thus Wendell (a rabbit-child) readily defeats attacks on him by nameless predators – but a full-grown tiger who’s after her mother is readily devoured by Coney (a rabbit-wolf hybrid girl) while she’s still an infant.

Most of the sapient animals who die are simply from “the wilds” – which apparently is basically a near-limitless source of prey who usually only appear to be eaten or to point it up when the major characters are too distracted to eat them. They get no chance of winning.

The economy and society operates normally enough to be a recognizable backdrop despite the enormous casualty rate – which would rationally make it near-impossible to train people, make even basic schools an enormous expense, pretty much eliminate making loans, and otherwise make it awkward to keep things functioning.

Despite the fact that the young, sick, and injured are all natural prey and can be expected to be quickly eaten, there’s a human-style medical infrastructure in place to take care of major characters – instead of a series of butcher shops.

Major character parents value their children a great deal, despite the ongoing mass slaughter of background characters and their children. “The young and stupid are MUCH easier prey”.

People get devoured neatly and usually don’t make a fuss about it (often being swallowed alive and whole despite how vulnerable the throat, neck, and abdomen are to even a single frantic claw-slash from the inside), since blood and stinking guts, pleading, struggling, screaming, and grieving relatives are off-putting to the readers and reduce sympathy for the major characters.

Things like Predator-to-Prey ratio – and what so many of the species having human-like sizes, breeding, and aging patterns would do to it – are NEVER discussed.

So lets take a quick peek at reality (such as it is).

A mammalian predator in the human size range (wolf, big cat, etc) needs to catch roughly it’s own weight in prey every week. Thus a ten-year-old predator kid needs to have caught, defeated (without getting killed or seriously enough injured to let something eat him), and eaten some five hundred other kids. Yes, there’s parental care – but that just shifts the burden to killing more a bit later in life, it doesn’t really change the basic calculation.

Every additional decade he or she lives, our predator will need to do the same thing again.

So lets say that (on the average) he or she lives to be twenty-five – long enough to get through school, make some kind of contribution to society, and raise a kid or two (presuming that they start breeding as teenagers) to the point where they might be able to survive without you.

So our average predator… will be eating at least 1250 other people. And there will have to be enough breeding pairs of prey species to keep that at a reasonably steady state and to cover for accidents and diseases and such. A ratio of about 1600 to 1 is close enough to work with given these rather crude calculations.

If a given prey kid has a one-in-fifty chance of winning or inflicting sufficient injuries (clawing the inside of the throat perhaps for the popular “swallowed whole and kicking idea?) when jumped (not nearly enough to be fun in a game), then our predator kids chance of making it to adulthood at eighteen will be .99 to the 900’th power – 1 in 8500. Of course if the prey kids start helping each other intelligently, or carrying poison pills, or some such… all the predators are going to die. That’s why humans have no major predators.

For predators to function… their chance of winning a fight with a prey animal has to be closer to 99.99% (giving one a 91% chance of surviving to adulthood). Their prey must either breed extremely quickly or outnumber them enormously or some of both – and their prey must NOT act much more intelligently than they do.

Of course, basic prey-species defensive tactics include cooperation – herds, gangs, flocks, and all the other variants. If a prey species is even moderately dangerous to the predator species, and is intelligent enough to organize and plan ahead a bit… they have the numbers to massacre their predators. That’s a major reason why elephants have no real natural enemies other than humans.

If a predator is going to focus on a slow-breeding, slow-to-mature population of prey, it will be massively outnumbered or it will soon starve. If the target population is even modestly intelligent and dangerous to the predator… it will have to pick off outliers in secret or it’s going to get massacred. You can make social excuses (although excuses for “not protecting your kids” are a stretch) – but societies of prey species that don’t use such excuses will expand at the expense of the ones that don’t. In the long run, social excuses are not enough.

You can, of course, run a game in such a setting – but you’re just going to have to ignore or gloss over a LOT of the background details. You want prey-species player characters and some pretext of “balance” with predator-species player characters? The prey-species characters are going to be VASTLY more powerful than the background prey-species NPC’s. You want predators to make up 5% of the population? You’re just going to have to quietly ignore the fact that they’d pretty much wipe out the prey species (and then starve, since there’s only enough food for them for nineteen weeks) well within a year even if they turn on each other quite a bit. You want combat to be exciting enough to be interesting and to have serious consequences? Then PC’s are going to die a great deal more often than in the source material. You want your group of four predator characters to skip over three weeks? You’ll need to skip past the twelve people they killed in that time. You don’t want frantic screaming, begging, last-minute attempts at dirty tricks, weeping children, and grieving parents? Then no one is going to be taking death too seriously (there may even be volunteers, no matter how quickly any such tendency would normally be bred out). You want a supporting cast? Then you ignore the likelihood of random casualties among them.

And that’s the basic trick; once you’ve realized that you’re running a game set in a cartoon universe, then the system you’re using matters a lot less. In practical terms, however, you’re probably best off with a point-buy system to allow people to build characters of a wide variety of species and with off-the-wall abilities. Given that the opposing combative NPC’s are likely to be pretty transient (since the characters casually kill swarms of people just to live you can’t expect them to hold back against actual opponents), you won’t need too much detail there.

Personally… I like to be able to build nuanced characters, so I’d prefer a reasonably detailed system. Eclipse will (of course) do – and there are handy racial templates for human-scaled anthropomorphic animals and plenty of other creatures – but you could also use the Hero System or GURPS (although GURPS is probably too realistic for the setting). Other systems, like Ironclaw and Fuzzy Pirates, are designed for anthropomorphic role-playing – but they tend to have a lot of world-assumptions built into the rules (massive predation is NOT normally amongst them), so they can be considerably harder to work with than the more generic systems.

A little research was easy enough… The train had been crossing Wolvertons Gorge in Colorado, headed for it’s next stop in Fort Collins. It had consisted of several passenger cars and an assortment of freight cars. The manifest listed… a selection of assorted exotic reagents for a research project at Colorado State University (a set of sealed crates, not individually described except for being noted as minimally hazardous, originating from a defense department laboratory), a selection of Indian relics reclaimed by a lawsuit being returned to the tribes to be reburied in rifled tribal graves (any supernatural importance was not, sadly, listed on the computer manifest for the train), several crates of old-style rifles (reproductions of early military rifles, from the Indian Wars period) for a re-enactment group, biological samples (sealed, not otherwise identified), and gold-veined black facade marble for some fancy building. It was supposed to be picking up… microbrews, refined silver, computers, solar panels, and waterproof smartphone cases. A solid majority of the passengers were university-related or escorting freight. It looked like… most people with money opted to fly in. No surprise there, it was a long hot trip on a train.

Well… the mine was going to be a minor shadowland – and she wasn’t all THAT well equipped for investigations in the underworld. Tracing the essence-users who’d tried to stop it would be a good trick given how little there was to go on. Next stop… Fort Collins, and some supernatural detection effects.

Fort Collins was a rather interesting place! She picked up a bicycle at the Bicycle Library – which was fine with an untraceable cash deposit (well within her current means) and provided a local GPS locator/map. Even better, the city was EXTREMELY bicycle-friendly! Very convenient! And really quite lovely!

So… the reagents might be tricky to check on if they were already at the laboratory – which was likely; there’d be no reason to delay delivery. What else was there around the place?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology time signal transmitters WWV and WWVB were nearby, as was the Roosevelt National Forest – and the Poudre Valley Hospital (that she hopefully would not need) provided a regional health care center.

Well, that was interesting, although likely less than vital.

The city itself hosted… the National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation, the Human Genome Project, an Atmospheric Chemistry and Aerosol Laboratory, the Vectorbourne Illness Laboratory of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a USDA Seed Lab Storage facility, Headquarters for SCUBA Schools International (SSI), a National Wildlife Research Center, the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Western Regional Headquarters, and the University of Colorado.

Hm… those reagents had been addressed to the department of physics and chemistry, Professor Marnot – the Nanosecond Imaging Project.

Well, that shouldn’t be TOO bad to sneak into. Scientists tended to be more than a bit focused on their work, rather than on looking for possible magical spies.

Besides, that sounded intriguing… it was supposed to be imaging rapid chemical reactions mixed with neuroscience; they were trying to chart the activity of neural networks fast enough to trace the actual pathways involved in image-recognition and such to see how the brain actually worked. That would be worth a look even if she HADN’T had some business with the place!

The laboratory had a security guard – but it was one rather bored man, who spent most of his time directing wandering new students to the correct buildings. After all… few people really CARED all that much about this stuff! Easily Overlooked Presence Method it was, then, with the old clipboard and labcoat trick.

And the odds of someone being up to something had just gone WAY up! There was a well-concealed ward! Thaumaturgy, against detection – and according to the Coatl and Skoll it functioned… by diverting probes directed at the current building to an older version of the lab, torn down in 1928 but still existent in the underworld. That neatly provided results, and some reasonable-looking information, and even some activity – but concealed what was currently going on very nicely indeed! Someone… was quite clever! If she hadn’t walked through it while running essence-senses, she might never have noticed it; from just a few feet away, you just got the impression of some decrepit old-fashioned scientific types puttering around in a lab.

What was so important here as to require concealment like that?

Inside… there was a hell of a lot of complicated equipment, not to mention lots of samples of brain tissue. At the moment, a couple of researchers and some grad students were busily turning their equipment to the atomic-clock tick from the NIST transmitters to achieve the precision they needed for plotting thoughts moving through the brain!

Checking on the more detailed delivery manifest and looking things over with her (cloaked) investigative excellencies… It looked like about half the reagents were tissue-dyes, bioluminescent compounds, enzymes, and so on – used to make the reactions of the tissue more easily detected. The other half… were going into a graduate students lab, and were MUCH stranger stuff! Adrenaline, graveyard mold dust imbued with temporal energies, blood (greatly enriched with iron and apparently a mixture from many donors), neurotransmitters, ATP suspension, bone dust, and waters of lethe… Was somebody trying to raise the dead, or make their own Frankenstein? Didn’t they read their Mary Shelley? Or watch any of the movies? At least other than Young Frankenstein?

Wait, you could ORDER Waters of Lethe and the rest of that stuff as a part of a shipment of scientific reagents from the DEFENSE DEPARTMENT, and LIST THEM ON THE MANIFEST (even if it WAS the detailed one in the box rather than the public one), and no one paid attention? The Masons and thaumaturgical underground had to be a whole heck of a lot more active than she had EVER believed.

Of course… her FATHER had regularly dealt with magic, there were all those psychic power experiments the CIA was supposed to have run, psychic hotlines, astrology was a big business… Was the only thing keeping magic undercover a cultural assumption that getting involved with it – or just paying too much attention to it – was bad?

Which – for most mortals – was ALSO true.

Heh. So the Underworld and blood magic based assaults of WWII had simply left most of humanity unconsciously aware that even paying too much attention to the magical stuff was the equivalent of standing in a metallic bucket of water, wetting your finger, and sticking it into a powered-up light socket. No wonder so much stuff was just casually ignored. If you didn’t look at it, it might go away and leave you in peace! You saw it every day with people just… avoiding eye contact and going around “crazy” people on the street.

Blast it! It was just like YU-SHAN! She could probably stand on a streetcorner blazing with supernatural power and throwing explosions into the sky, and all she’d get would be a citation for illegal fireworks and creating a disturbance and some attention from the cranks who were too crazy to leave it alone! No wonder the Terrestrials were managing to cover things up… most of the population was quietly cooperating with them whether they knew it or not!

It looked like THAT lab was unusually magically active too – which was no surprise – but it was also Warded – this time against supernatural entities and with an alarm. Some very nice work there – but she had to admit that she counted as a supernatural entity. It was going to be tricky to disable it without triggering the alarm though. Still, she had Adenic Thaumaturgy and her Coatl (who had it too) to assist her…

It was still tricky – the caster was GOOD and she was well out of her specialties – but she managed to get rid of the alarm without triggering it eventually. After that, taking down the ward itself was fairly simple!

Even if it did require a lot of dice and bonus successes.

The laboratory looked normal enough visually. On the essence-side… it was actually functioning as a midrange manse, and had several areas available that didn’t exist for ordinary folk. Weirdly enough… Air Aspected. Not at ALL what she might have expected! Especially given those ingredients!

She kept a careful eye out. After all, at this point, any resistance was likely to be supernatural, and therefore not wanting this place exposed.

The obvious centerpiece of the main area that did not exist in normal space was a complex piece of electronic apparatus. It was surrounded by forty-six strange sculptures, apparently made of gold-plated platinum, each about three feet high and covered with countless tiny symbols that she needed to have Skoll turn up the magnification to make out. Twenty-two of them were paired, but there were two unique ones. They made up the outer border of a magical circle laid out on the floor. There was a minor artifact nearby – a perpetual power cell.

Hm. Some Sidereals used those in their cell phones and such – but this one was a good deal bigger and more powerful. It was also… connected to a dozen smartphones, each of which was sitting on a zodiac symbol in the inner part of the circle. There was another power cell for the mechanism in the center.

OK. This was WEIRD. The Smartphones seemed to be very minor (essentially merely being nigh-indestructible) artifacts in themselves, but were all basically just Samsung Galaxy Smartphones and components of the greater system. The mechanism at the center was pretty odd too; a sort of a sphere with crystal tubes sticking out all over it, a port showing an internal mechanism, and various wires. Part of it appeared to be a clock display too – and that might be some radio circuitry in there.

The clock display was digital – with rather a LOT of decimal places – and was mounted on a few support struts and some wires. It currently showed… “10.04.2014:03.14.12 – with another eighteen or so decimal places which were changing REALLY fast. Presuming that it was right… her watch was a couple of minutes off. It was counting up of course, the last eighteen digits or so too fast to see, and the one that seemed to be seconds at… one second per second.

OK, if this was all a project of some obsessive timekeeper trying to compare time in the Underworld to time in Creation or something, she was going to laugh SO hard.

According to various detection effects and her excellencies… the output… imposed some sort of essence-signal on radio waves that broadcast from the central mechanism and through the cell phones. Part of that modulation – the fine-tuning – came from the weird statues. The actual effect wasn’t yet in place – but seemed to involve some of those reagents and something to do with time.

Was that going faster around here? Then why match her watch reasonably well at all? And why would you need such precision?

Wait a moment… the Samsung Galaxy… Hadn’t Charles somehow given those things limitless range… A time standard for the universe perhaps?

The “Obsessive Timekeeper” theory was looking better and better, if it wasn’t just someone trying to study that effect. Looking for lag across the light years maybe? Trying to communicate with aliens? E.T. Phone Home? Nah… no need for the clock function with either of those.

Come to think of it, with this manse setup… was she even still ON Earth?

Ah. Yes and no. She was on the borders of the underworld – although not in it. Sort of between life and death. A shadowland of sorts. No wonder the place looked a bit old-fashioned – although that machine certainly looked up-to-date. The grad student probably wasn’t a ghost then.

Time for some deep analysis.

Traces of Wyld Thaumaturgy and Abyssal Energies. Some Necromancy. Also Energetics and Enchantment. Another Cauldron-Born? Well, she couldn’t blame an Abyssal for accepting Demien’s offer, although that HAD to have some awkward side effects.

No… it was just wyld thaumaturgy, not wyld charms. Still, someone was DEFINITELY fooling around with some oddities!

As for the sculptures… twenty-two paired, and two unique ones. All abstract spirals. The two that didn’t match looked rather like a cross and a an upside-down “Y”. Some kind of antenna? They did seem to have something to do with tuning. They were covered with tiny symbols though – somewhat stylized groups of letters: ALA, CYS, ASP, GLU, PHE, GLY, HIS, ILE, LYS, LEU, MET, ASN, PRO, GLN, ARG, SER, THR, VAL, TRP, and TYR.

What the hell?

OK, time to Google!

Peptides? That looked like DNA! So this student WAS trying to make a person, or at least an organism. No, definitely human; those matched human chromosomes – presumably accurate ones, given that the Human Genome Project was in town. But they were modulating a broadcast of some sort – which, for some reason, included an incredibly accurate clock and wyld thaumaturgy and something that needed intergalactic range and was being tuned with representations of human DNA.

And that an Abyssal was interested in… Perhaps it was Hubert Farnsworth’s Death Clock! After all… a world a lot like Futurama almost certainly DID exist someplace in the universe. More likely though… if it was being tuned with DNA, it might be some subtle working to alter people. It wasn’t ready to broadcast yet – but she knew the layout and the reagents and could ask some of the greatest occult experts in the universe for help.

It looked like the broadcast would be tuned specifically to humans (although that did cover an awful lot of “aliens”), using wyld thaumaturgy to attune human minds that were within reach of the broadcast and on the edge of death to the clock. It had probably originally been meant to tap into the time broadcasts from NIST and cover the earth, but now used the Smartphones to cover the universe instead. There was a secondary information-providing function, but what that was was buried in the machine since the broadcast was not currently going out.

An attempt to extend Lethe? Waters of it were among the reagents.

Well, Skoll DID have perfect stealth (barring physical contact) as long as you stood still. Why not hang around and ask or watch? It sounded as if someone was coming anyway. Blast. There must have been an electronic alarm as well as the magical one!

It looked like… a woman in her early 20’s, quite obviously an Abyssal. There was a rather careful search – but after it turned up nothing, the woman went back to installing various reagents. Rather single-minded there! Was this about ready to do whatever it did? Still, she didn’t seem at ALL hostile.

Watching the various reagents being installed allowed her occult advisers to find a solution; the broadcast would allow (but not force) dying human minds to operate on the zeptosecond time scales of the clock – and would inform them of their options; a smooth transition into Lethe or becoming a voluntary ghost (or, for those with the skill, taking over an animal body). You would, however, only have a few effective hours to think about it if your brain was being destroyed at the speed of light or something. Otherwise… you could basically take as long as you needed.

Huh. That was really rather benevolent! Likely a Daybreak, or possibly a Midnight. Time to reveal herself!

(Abyssal) “Hrrmph! I thought there was someone in here! One moment!”

She added the last reagents.

(Aikiko) “Oh, take your time.”

And the entire mess… sank into the floor as the Utility Artifact Suite for the manse was completed.

(Aikiko) “Whoa! So… why do you want everyone to know their options about their afterlife?”

(Abyssal) “So that it won’t be messy and random! It’s inefficient and intolerable! People need to die properly, and without all this insane, unnatural, attempts to keep a dying body alive! We’ve got ghosts handing about who don’t realize that they’re dead, others stuck in weird situations, people who would have wanted to be ghosts who don’t figure it out in time, people who can’t find the right way to go! There should be ORGANIZATION! Plenty of time to leave dream-messages and haunting impressions for family and friends on the way out BEFORE going straight to Lethe! The ability to voluntarily check out when it is time to go! And so on!”

(Aikiko, sighing) “Let me guess. Daybreak Caste?”

(Abyssal) “I never paid much attention to labels!”

(Aikiko) “Well, I’m not opposed, so I’ll keep quiet about this.”

(Abyssal) “Surprisingly sensible of you! So many of your sort are maniacs who believe that everything they do is heroic and right!”

Gah. Social Skills = Zero, natural talent for dealing with people… about as minimal as a human being could get. Rather like Charles when she’d first met him, but without his self-effacing way of fading into the background. It hadn’t even been MAGIC, he’d just… stood around being naive, and everyone just talked over him while he gave people what they needed… Aargh! Could this be some sort of… abyssal aspect of Charles? Like that bit about the Neverborn aspects of Primordials? Given that he was ALREADY being a quasi-primordial and had spawned a near-Ishvara aspect… And this one was… obviously… kind of focused on… manses and artificing…

Oh SURELY not!

(Aikiko) “Anyway… I came up here because of the train accident.”

Aikiko told her about it – although it was likely that she already knew; she’d been looking for someone who might have pulled a bridge out of the underworld to get the train through, and here she had an Abyssal who’d wanted the train to get through. Circumstantial, yeah, but it did seem pretty solid.

(Abyssal) “Hmph! Panicky Idiots! I couldn’t be having that! I may have to do something about them!”

(Aikiko) “What, talking about the ghosts in that mine?”

(Abyssal) “They need some straightening out, but it’s the local terrestrials who need to learn to behave!”

(Aikiko) “Oh? I can see how they’d be freaking out lately, what with all the weirdness going on.”

Unfortunately, the game was already overtime at this point. Investigation takes a good deal longer to play out than it does to summarize.

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-cxc-waiting-for-godot/feed/0ThothThe Chronicles of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXIX – Planes, Trains, and Kaijumobileshttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvii-planes-trains-and-kaijumobiles/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvii-planes-trains-and-kaijumobiles/#commentsSat, 07 Feb 2015 09:22:07 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20887]]>In the morning, Aikiko was back to her search – and had opted to go back to the tabloids. They’d been informative enough last time!

As long as you were a hyper-investigator with the ability to sort the clues from the trash anyway.

She discounted the stuff about mysterious power sources, collapsing oil and coal industries, Gilgamesh, blatant sorcery, and a winged golden angel fighting demons in Mecca.

The Amber “Thefts” (or “unauthorized but vastly overpaying purchases”) seemed to have wound down; whoever was doing THAT evidently got enough for whatever he or she had been doing with the stuff. Perhaps a ritual or some artificing? Presuming that it wasn’t just some creature that ate the stuff or something. Well, at least it hadn’t been an obvious catastrophe.

A small town in Scotland had abruptly been placed under martial law, and mostly cut off. The current speculation was “Terrorists”. It was some distance away from the one that Leon’s city opened up to though. Wait… it was a bit of a stretch… but if you read the towns name as if it was Old Realm… “The Place Of The Moon’s Gate”? “Where The Moonlight Enters In”? “The Path Of The Moon”?

Bah. A little more reaching and letter-substitution and she could turn it into “Vortex Of Occluded Stars” or “Where The Moon Knocks”, or any of a thousand other things. As if someone would found a town and name it in a long-dead language anyway. Next thing you knew she’d be trying to interpret Nostradamus.

A gigantic plane of some sort was reported as having traveled from New York to Tokyo at supersonic speeds, but details were sketchy. While several chase-planes had been deployed, no pictures had been released. That… was a bit odd; unless the thing had been dragging along it’s own private storm or was cloaked or something there should have been plenty of time for all kinds of cameras to get a shot of it. Still, that could be all kinds of things.

In the southwest, a train had apparently managed to cross a major gorge on a bridge that had collapsed in an explosion some twenty minutes before. It was reported that some passenger had cold-cocked the engineer and taken control of the train, despite attempts by the crew to intervene. Additional reports of a bandit gang chasing the train on horseback were mostly being disregarded since no one had seen any sign of such a group otherwise.

OK: That one was kind of weird. Air Aspect? Guardian or Chosen of Journeys? Raksha playing hero?

The EPA had approved plans to construct a water system using “emerging technology” in the midwest. So… they’d decided to get Charles to build them a water-supply manse. Well, it wasn’t as if he was going to keep them a secret otherwise, what with his being about to open up hundreds of stargate-manses across the planet.

There were claims that Mechagodzilla had been sighted in Oregon again. There were some photographs, but they were mostly being disregarded as publicity stunts for Toho – and while no one knew for sure what had stopped that flash flood, trees forming a temporary dam seemed a lot more plausible to most than Mechagodzilla.

Well… she did need to talk to Mechagodzilla anyway.

In the Ukraine, there had been massive disruptions of the Russian military forces, lots of equipment failures, and a few command disappearances – although those individuals were popularly thought to have skipped out rather than attempting to explain the sillier failures. Of course… in a semi-invasion situation, any number of creatures might have opted to get involved. Even without the political factors half the magical beings out there were pretty territorial. Still… could that be connected to the amber-gathering?

Iran and Iraq were both gearing up their military forces while they still had the currency reserves to buy things. Not too surprising that; even if they weren’t both so paranoid about each other they probably found Leon kind of threatening. Still, a LACK of hostilities in the middle east would have been a lot more surprising.

What was semi-serious reporting like that doing in the tabloids anyway? Oh; framing for a series of much sillier stories about mercenaries and such.

Hm… the largest beaver dam in the world had been discovered in Canada. There were pictures. And… an attempt to vandalize it was supposedly driven off by Bigfoot? Clearly the beaver hired Bigfoot as a bodyguard once the first humans invaded his turf!

OK, that was kind of cute – and a friendly sparring match with Bigfoot had it’s appeal – but that was much more classic woo. Probably not worth investigating; at the most she’d just find some interesting scenery and someone out being “Bigfoot”.

An F5 tornado headed through Minneapolis ran into a “dome of light” over the city which it apparently could not penetrate. The current scientific speculation was that it had lifted off the ground (which was not at all unknown, even if it was mildly unusual) and had thrown up enough clouds and dust to reflect the cities own lights.

Now THAT sounded like a Guardian. Or at least like someone with a good deal of power and willingness to oblige. Or possibly one of Charles’s agents? He certainly had enough of them running about and a “dome of light” could EASILY be a ward.

Satellite Surveillance had revealed a massive structure in the antarctic after a massive iceburg (115 miles long, 16 miles wide at it’s widest point) cracked off of an ice shelf. It was apparently buried under the ice and appears to be made of crystal. Current speculation is that the pictures have been doctored to add a “Fortress of Solitude” for publicity for the new Superman movie; it will be 27 days before the satellite is back in position for more decent shots.

Likely a Manse. Anything else would have been ground to powder under the ice sheet a long time ago. Still, that also implied that it had been there for quite some time and hadn’t turned into a catastrophe yet. That would probably keep – at least as long as the humans didn’t get too far into some kind of investigation. Still… the most urgent thing at the moment was to get in touch with MechaGodzilla. She needed to ask him for a Kaiju-Boon, just in case! Ergo, a trip to Crater Lake was in order.

Of course, the Cauldron-Born knew that SHE knew about Crater Lake – and might well meet her there – which could be VERY bad…

Oh, wait! She was one of MechaGodzilla’s shrine maidens – and thus a priest of his! She could just hype up a prayer with a little linking magic and basically phone him up! That was a LOT less likely to result in being ambushed too.

And she managed 11 successes on 16 dice.

(Aikiko) “Hey there! What are you doing, performing civil engineering like that?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Greetings small worshipper! You have shown my grandeur to another potential shrine maiden! Congratulations! And why not protect the little ones? A simple blast of the Absolute Zero cannon in passing to preserve many worshippers! And putting in an appearance is no bad thing!”

(Aikiko) “Thanks… anyway, I was wanting to ask you for a boon! I think there’s going to be trouble in Heaven soon, and I want to help protect it. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Ah, protect a giant city from some terrible attack? This seems appropriate!”

Aikiko facepalmed. Of COURSE it did.

(Aikiko) “Can you… heh. Can you make me and Skoll Ultraman-size when the time comes?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Hmmm…. Grow to giant size? Easy enough!”

(Aikiko) “OK then… now if I accept that, what were you expecting in return?”

It did seem wise to ask! Deities could get weird, and Kaiju Deities might be even weirder!

(MechaGodzilla) “It is a small enough thing! Do show my movies at your parties though!”

(Aikiko, with a breath of relief) “OK, done!… Um… so what are your creators up to in there?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Preparing for something or other! Some sort of battle I think… It should be fun!”

(Aikiko) “Do you know where?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Off in the god-city I think!”

(Aikiko) “Do you know whose side they were on?”

(MechaGodzilla) “Must be against other Kaiju! What else would be worthy? Maybe Tournament!”

Was it possible that the Cauldron-Born knew about the Neverborn Kaiju?

(MechaGodzilla) “Less silly than some styles! Heard about one that involves nothing but going to sleep and contagious yawning…”

(Aikiko) “Sidereals are weird-but then one made you, sooo… Not that I think you’re weird or anything! You’re pretty cool, all things considered.”

(MechaGodzilla) “Of course! I am MECHAGODZILLA! How could I be anything BUT cool?”

(Aikiko) “Exactly!”

She rather hoped that he was not wearing his distracting hat right now, because that WAS silly. Of course it WAS a Raksha artifact. So many of them were silly.

(Aikiko) “Well, thanks, Mechagodzilla. Stay out of trouble, now!”

(MechaGodzilla) “Not likely! But you are welcome!”

(Aikiko) “Huh… Oh, is your pilot still after me?”

He or she might already be headed her way!

(MechaGodzilla) “Off in Chaos at the moment!”

(Aikiko) “Ah, okay then…”

Well… it was hard to scry from outside Creation into Creation. Unless they had some Manse for it. Or were using the Eye somehow (who knew what all that thing could do?). Or were using Sidereal charms. Or…. Well, OK; there were a lot of ways.

Time to look into that train incident. The more she thought about that, the odder it sounded. Sure, temporarily fixing a bridge wasn’t one of the great acts of magic – but who would have a charm for it? That was kind of specialized. Even if it was a general “repair road” effect… it would still be kind of specialized!

It was easy enough to get to the area. Not too surprisingly, one of the drier areas of the west (they could REALLY use that water supply). The bridge was currently being repaired – and the current speculation was that the timeline of the incident must be wrong; it must have held up just long enough for the train to pass.

She was no demolitions expert – but while there might have been some dynamite stored around or something – even if no one sane would store it under the supports for a train bridge in the middle of nowhere – but the placement had been awfully convenient; the main support struture. Overall, it looked more intentional than anything else, but there wasn’t much of a crater or any other signs of a large enough blast. Essence-senses said… there had been an essence-blast here – fire essence, and apparently well-targeted. Those traces were almost drowned out by the flood of necrotic essence however… Of the fifth or sixth essence rank. Some sort of high-powered – if fairly transitory – summoning from the underworld. That was a pretty powerful ghost or Abyssal, though! Not a neverborn Kaiju – but perhaps its charms?

Nah. There should be a lot more destruction and dismay if it was THAT. Hekatonkire? But how would it imitate a set of train tracks well enough to avoid a derailment.

Oh! There HAD been something very big that had just been sent to the Underworld! The bridge itself! Now… that was a clever (if likely mote-intensive) use of a MUCH more sensible charm. That must have really irritated the people who’d blown it up! Those horse riders… Ghosts? Train robbers? After all, presumably the point of blowing up the bridge was to wreck or stop the train. The train crossing a spectral bridge must have been quite a sight.

Were there any shadowlands nearby?

A small and minor one; a ghost town that once centered on a gold mine that collapsed, sealing several hundred miners underground. No one knew how long some of them might have survived – but attempts to reopen the mine had never gone well. There were a number of robberies of course; a sizeable load of gold was a very tempting prize. Most of the bandits were caught and hanged eventually – but no doubt at least some found their way to the other side of that shadowland.

She might have to pay that one a visit.

Still, somebody had really wanted to stop someone or something on that train – and possibly acquire it. Perhaps she could get the passenger and cargo list?

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvii-planes-trains-and-kaijumobiles/feed/2ThothEclipse d20 and Dexter’s Laboratoryhttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/eclipse-d20-and-dexters-laboratory/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2015/02/03/eclipse-d20-and-dexters-laboratory/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 09:02:18 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20885]]>This time around (and for another try at restarting) it’s another request for a look at how some characters could be represented in Eclipse. In this case… it’s some cartoon characters from Dexter’s Laboratory, starting with Dexter himself. That means taking a look at what Dexter actually does. He may talk about “Science!” a lot – but that doesn’t mean that his abilities and devices actually have anything to do with actual science. In fact… it’s rather more likely that they don’t.

So looking at the episodes, we can derive some rules for Dexter.

Dexter normally only uses one major invention per episode. When two appear, the second is usually being used by Dee-Dee.

Dexter’s inventions do not carry over from episode to episode. On those rare occasions when an invention “reappears”, it usually does not work quite the same way as it did before.

Dexter’s inventions often go very badly wrong – and he is usually not at all clear on how they work or what they do.

Dexter’s computer cannot operate his Dream Machine (that requires Dee-Dee). It seems likely that it cannot operate most of his other inventions, or testing them would be a lot safer.

Dexter’s actions and devices often fail if Dee-Dee thinks they won’t work.

Dexter has a limited supply of “mental energy”. When he runs out, he becomes stupid (Not that he doesn’t reach astonishingly silly conclusions most of the time anyway). He spontaneously recovers once his supply of “mental energy” rebuilds, which it does naturally, if relatively slowly.

Dexter has been implied to have been killed more than once, and simply comes back for the next episode.

Dexter’s laboratory is often “destroyed” – but the damage generally seems to be superficial and “old inventions” often survive (although they are resentful for being abandoned).

For some restrictions…

Dexter’s incredible “intelligence” does NOT apply to planning; his plans almost never work.

Dexter cannot control his pets, or apparently other living creatures (or ghosts, since he was haunted by a dead goldfish).

Dexter’s laboratory draws at least part of it’s power from external sources.

Dexter needed two hundred million dollars worth of equipment (from NASA) to build his laboratory. (Conveniently, Dee-Dee produced the money for him to pay them).

Of course Dexter gets into endless amounts of trouble – but that’s a basic element of making a cartoon, and doesn’t count. For all we know… he gets through many entire days without trouble, but those dull days don’t become episodes.

Hm. So far… that doesn’t sound much like actual science. That’s not really surprising of course – this IS a cartoon we’re talking about – but the Professor on Gilligan’s Island came a lot closer than this to how science and engineering actually work.

Perhaps looking at Dee-Dee will help sort things out? Dee-Dee…

Cannot be kept out of Dexter’s laboratory.

Is not limited by odds – conveniently winning 200,000,000 dollars just when Dexter needed it.

Can manifest a dimensional portal without equipment or difficulty to an imaginary realm that she defines (Dexter has to use a pile of equipment, and still cannot make it work properly. Perhaps this explains why Dee-Dee cannot be kept out of Dexter’s Laboratory?).

Can casually inflict massive destruction on Dexter’s Lab, Mandark’s Lab, and various other locations.

Can manifest imaginary friends – and inflict them on other people.

Can trap Dexter in an invisible box via mime.

Told Dexter that if he kept scratching his chicken pox he would turn into a chicken. He did.

Usually beats Dexter even when he is using an invention and she is not (For example, video games, snowball fighting, and dodgeball, among many other episodes).

Can (accidentally?) cause perfectly normal systems – like old Video games – to exhibit abnormal behavior and overwhelm Dexter and his computer.

Tends to be treated well and admired by others – including radically different species, such as ants. In fact, she can easily tame dog-dinosaurs and other creatures and run Dungeons and Dragons games better than Dexter can.

Can use Dexter’s inventions – often more successfully than he can and with greater skill.
Seems to be of relatively normal intelligence, if (quite appropriately) childish.

Well, that does tell us a lot about Dee-Dee. She’s either inherently magical or a natural reality-warper. What’s more, she apparently uses the same type of energy as Dexter does, since she can use his devices. She seems to have more of it than Dexter too, but is NOT using much of it to be hyper-intelligent.

So what about Mandark?

Mandark is basically an evil version of Dexter, and shows him up several times – mostly being defeated due to his desire for Dee-Dee. While his abilities and limitations seem to be much the same as Dexter’s (see above), he seems a bit stronger – possibly because he may be a bit older.

Mandark can spy on Dexter without Dexter knowing. Another indicator of being more powerful.

Mandark can pick up a spell book and use magic powerful enough to defeat Dexter, although it has side effects and his control is poor.

Mandark can use Dexter’s devices and his own.

So… the same kind of “Mental Energy” that Dexter uses lets Mandark use magic and Dexter’s devices. In Eclipse that pretty much screams “Mana” – Making Dee-Dee a full-scale Reality Editor and Mandark a limited Reality Editor (he has to channel his power through odd devices) and a user of Unskilled Magic.

These gifts seem to be hereditary; Dexter’s Grandfather has a very similar laboratory and created “technologies” surpassing Dexter’s works. Dexter’s parents… accomplish some pretty impossible things at times, without even seeming to be aware of it.

Dexter and Dee-Dee – and, for that matter, Mandark – are all kids. Ergo, they probably don’t have any levels. The do, however, obviously have Templates. Most likely the Cartoon Character Template

Grant of Aid: May heal 1d8+5 damage OR 1d3 points of attribute damage OR one negative level once per three levels per day or part thereof, 6 CP), with both Regenerative options (6 CP) and +8 Bonus Uses (12 CP). In core, this requires several hours per use unless the user spends a magic point.

Extraordinary Returning (Specialized, requires abandoning all experience and benefits that might otherwise have been gained from a “death episode”) (3 CP).

Innate Enchantment: All spells Personal Only: Rubber Fall (resembles Feather Fall, but you have to peel yourself off the ground, 1400 GP),

Template Disadvantage: Insane (most toons are blasé, even bored, in even the most dangerous and deadly situations, -3 CP).

That will apply to pretty much everyone in their setting of course. It IS a cartoon universe.

As for their precise powers… another 32 CP will give them +2 level templates – which seems pretty reasonable. Throwing in 24 CP for level zero will allow some customization too.

For their basic template they’ll need…

3d6 Mana with Reality Editing (18 CP). Mandark has this Corrupted for 1.5 times effect: his effects are quite unreliable unless focused through a “mad science” device – although he can throw those together quite quickly and easily. Dexter has the same problem plus a Specialization – his devices are terribly unreliable and troublesome.

Rite of Chi with +4 Bonus Uses, Corrupted/recovers only over the course of an hour (8 CP).

Empowerment, Specialized in “Mad Science” devices (6 CP).

For their personal abilities…

Dexter has Inherent Spell (Mana-Powered Variant) – a level three version of Fox’s Cunning with a multi-hour duration (6 CP). He probably also has a few skill points in math and scholastic skills – but if he actually knew anything about making things he could have fixed his glasses. They’re not that complicated. His base Intelligence apparently isn’t all that high, but he certainly survives enough explosions and disasters to indicate a high Constitution.

Mandark has the same ability as Dexter (6 CP), but also has the Unskilled Magic ability (6 CP). He does seem fairly alert, so he likely has a high wisdom.

Dee-Dee has about 3d6 extra mana (18 CP). That’s enough raw power for her to pull off several insane stunts in a row without much difficulty. She has a few skill points in Dance and a decent Charisma and Dexterity.

And really… that’s about all they need. To make them really playable you’d probably want to make them level one and get them a few more points of mana – but brief-minute cartoon segments really don’t call for all that big a power reserve. Of course, this is once again a splendid example of converting characters based on what they ACTUALLY do, rather than what it looks like they’re doing – or how they’re described.

And if at ALL possible I’m going to try to get to the question backlog and start posting here again – even if some articles need to be split into smaller pieces.

Meanwhile, at Dudael, Charles had an aspect keeping up with his normal tasks. Once he’d gotten the trick figured out there was no reason not to use it – and there were the employees to look after, not to mention all those people bringing important orders to the door.

For good or ill, however, it had gotten around (at least in some circles) that you didn’t need to be purified before entering to avoid mucking things up. The occasional Sidereal dropping by with an order was proof enough of that; they didn’t have TIME for purification rituals!

At the moment, Charles and Catherine Wingates (the factory-cathedral’s Nocturnal) were working on a massive order of Celestial Coffee Carafes for the God of Caffeine!

Well, mostly Charles. Catherine was very, VERY, handy with metalworking stuff – but not nearly as good as Charles was. They weren’t really a very complex piece of magitech (Rating-**) and were well within Catherine’s abilities – but she simply wasn’t anywhere near as fast. The essence scriber flared with rainbows of both natural and indescribable colors as its energies arched across the metal and engraved essence-channeling runes into the structure of the bases, to bypass the need for a special component – as Charles used the facilities to produce a full batch!

Catherine happily inspected the runes and gave him pointers on how the engraving could possibly go wrong – one of her Charms. Very handy for quality control. She even found a couple of places where things could be better; Charles WAS very distracted at the moment.

Which was one of the reasons why she was the first to notice that they had a visitor.

(Catherine, talking to a goddess, who had magma spurting in great gouts from her headdress) “Hey, who are you? How did you get in?”

(Charles, after a brief pause) “Er… Can I help you? One moment while I shut this down…”

(Goddess) “You there! What have you done to my daughter!?”

Charles was busy checking… Ah! It was Red-Eyed Mahanja, goddess of tectonic activity in the southwestern United States. A fairly powerful deity in the part of the Bureau of Nature that dealt with North American geology! And right now… a bit eruptive! As for her Daughter… Urrm… not a schoolmate, so no lesser exaltation… of course he WAS being blamed for pretty much every little geomantic disruption in Yu-Shan these days, but that presumably wouldn’t include whatever was up with her daughter.

Oh dear! She wasn’t one of the ones who’d moved in on him was she?

Urp! She WAS… Still, at least she hadn’t been in his bed and wasn’t pregnant by anyone else either… It was a good thing that some of the Guardians had been keeping THAT peaceful…

Well, thank goodness she hadn’t opted for that! That would have made this even messier – because Red-Eyed Mahanja was advancing on him at the moment…

(Charles) “Hm… Nothing that I know of! Is something wrong?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja) “My Aya is demanding to move into Aden with you! I arranged a perfectly good marriage for her, with NORMAL people, and THIS is what she does to me?”

The gouts of magma were increasing in radius.

(Charles, quietly containing the magma) “Hm… I think she’s requesting refuge. I’d suspect that means that she doesn’t want that marriage… Did you get her input on it?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja) “She knows what her purpose is, and what she has been trained for. I admit she wasn’t cheery about it, but I explained that this was for her benefit as well! It is hard to marry a mortal to a magma god and have her live!”

Hrm… about equivalent to fifteen. Perfectly legal under Celestial law, sadly; God-Bloods were their parents, to use as intended.

(Charles) “I suspect that part of the trouble is that mortals tend to become extremely rebellious at about her age! This is a mechanism that gets them out of the household, finding their own mate, and establishing their own family. Coupled with the urge towards exogamy, as side benefits there’s genetic mixing and spread of genetic lines over much wider areas. Unfortunately, the intensity of that rebellion is distributed over the usual bell curve – but trying to ignore it is going to make problems, like ignoring any other part of an operating protocol… Why did you want her to marry a magma god anyway?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja):”Why, a political arrangement, of course… the groom has some contacts I would find very useful and dearly wants some God-Bloods of his own! And he is wealthy and quite handsome, too.”

(Charles) “Well… let me check on what her objections are!”

(Aya, over Charles’s link) “I don’t want to be married to a god! They have no idea what humans are like. But YOU… you actually understand. When are you coming back to Aden? I miss you!”

Oh dear. She WOULD be in his bed shortly if he didn’t do something about it. Not that that was an unpleasant prospect – but it would probably upset her mother. Oh well! He HAD offered a refuge to anyone who wanted it… He directed her to one of his manifestations in Aden – which made her quite happy.

(Charles, in Dudael) “Hm… her basic objection seems to be divine incomprehension of mortals. Given that her rebellion seems to have been unexpected, she may have a point. This IS awkward… As long as you get the connections and your daughter is happy, do the details matter?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja): “But… wait, is she in Aden THIS VERY MOMENT?”

(Charles) “She does seem to be… There are a number of gates available of course.”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja) “I want her out of there! She doesn’t need to be running around in someone else’s pocket dimension!”

(Charles) “Well, there are only about sixteen million people there at the moment… But it is important… do the details matter much?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja) “I MUST have those connections!”

(Charles) “Ah. The girl is more or less a means to that end then?”

(Red-Eyed Mahanja) “Well, yes – and it ensures she has some use, too!”

(Charles) “Well, then… Would you step this way? This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes!”

He took her to the shores of the Sea of Chaos – and produced an identical-twin level duplicate with similar memories, abilities, and essence-readings, but who was willing and eager to marry the gentlegod in question!

(Red-Eyed Mahanja, after a moment of shock): “Does that go all the way down to Essence-sense?”

And just a few hours later… Charles started receiving similar offers / requests – perhaps best summarized as “take my god-blooded teenager and provide a more compliant version”. Alas! Many gods produced God-Blooded offspring, not realizing just what it took to raise a mortal child.

Well… it was a bit WEIRD, but the originals could be free, the new ones would not have gotten to exist otherwise, and they were created so as to be happy with the situations they were in… He’d have to try to keep that one quiet though!

Which would work until somebody and their duplicate were seen in the same place. Still… there was an entire universe for them to be out of the way in – and he could help out the rebellious originals! New clothing styles, tattoos, body sculpting (with magic) and so on, all free! And… it was pretty much inevitable that most of them would go for the LEAST Yu-Shan look that they could manage – which pretty much meant avoiding Asian themes. That should patch most of that for the time being!

He had to admit that Red-Eyed Mahanja had been quite right about what would shortly happen once her daughter moved into Aden – but that wasn’t really a big deal. He had plenty of room and several aspects there and she’d traded away her interests in the girl readily enough.

OK, maybe that was throwing huge gobs of power at minor personal problems – but at the moment he had a LOT more power than time!

Getting back to work, Charles finished up with the Celestial Coffee Carafes – Catherine had been called away while he was working with the Red-Eyed one – just as she came back from the lobby with some LEGITIMATE visitors!

(Catherine) “Hey, Boss! While you were doing… whatever it was you did in there… um, I forget how the one looked, but the other looked like she just finished a really good run. I think it might be urgent.”

And she pointed him towards the “waiting room” – the first floor entry chambers, the last spot for unpurified visitors. Beyond that point were the purification chambers, the main facility, and a few rooms for quick naps during long projects.

There were only two visitors at the moment – two women. One was wearing a lovely short yellow dress and boots and looked like she’d been on a long run. The other… even Dudael was straining to get through THAT level of cloaking, but it was a veiled, violet-eyed woman with a sad look on her face. Somehow she had managed to get a blade through security, although it was currently sheathed and peace-bonded.

And radiating enormous power. Mercury and Saturn. Journeys and Endings…

Well no wonder the person manning the desk was in shock; one Maiden alone was considered a mind-boggling visitor to have in Heaven. Of course… Charles HAD just meddled big-time with their purview!

(Charles, bowing slightly) “My ladies of Journeys and Endings… I am honored to have you visit! Would you like some peanut butter chocolates?

He still had some boxes about, including a few of ambrosial ones.

(Mercury) “Haha! I hear you make good ones. That’d be nice before we get to business – maybe a tour of the place too. We could see how Za’el is doing… What do you say, sister?”

And her table manners were impeccable – but it seemed that the Maiden of Journeys ate like a bird.

(Charles, thoughtfully) “Well… there doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice. SOMEBODY has to do it – and no one else seems to be prepared to. So… I guess it’s me.”

(Saturn) “But do you fully understand the interaction between the Loom and Nox?”

Even with Dudael’s defenses, it was a struggle to remember her words.

(Charles) “Probably not! The loom seems to set reality exclusion parameters – and I’d guess that Nox acts to help it avoid overlap with other probability-trees, thus avoiding universe-intersections. Secondarily, it acts to integrate the limited selection of probability lines it allows to exist within its purview into a single – far more “real” and stable – universe. I can’t really guarantee that though! I haven’t had enough time to talk to it and Nox!”

(Mercury, fidgeting) “Hey, show us around while we talk! We know you’ve made some alterations to the place, and it’d be fun to see those!”

Charles stepped up the pace – and showed them that all of the facilities – and the boosts – were in full operation now!

(Mercury) “Anyway… yeah, that’s pretty much what Ayuji does for Heaven and Creation. Now NOX, on the other hand – hoo… Yeah, he kind of does that… and binds those probability lines together, and makes universes interact when they need to. I think. Nox was… weird.”

(Saturn) “And THAT’S why we want to make sure you know what you’re meddling with! You’re not working on just one universe when you’re working on Nox.”

(Charles) “I did know that! There are LOTS of him all tangled together there…”

(Mercury) “Quick question for you, kid: how many of those were bound into the Loom?”

(Charles) “Hm… I’m not sure that the answer is meaningful in what may be an infinite number… Given that it’s a binary decision in an infinite plenum, it should be half – and will remain so, no matter how many are loosed or bound UNLESS that can be done in a sequence that sums to an infinite total within a finite time. What I could see… tended to confirm that.”

(Mercury handing Saturn a fairly large quantity of Ambrosial Chocolates) “Aw… I thought that we’d been more successful than that. Maybe we could have you check.”

(Saturn) “Those unbound Noxes can feel what you are doing – and we can’t guarantee all of them will agree with it.”

(Mercury) “Yeah, he and Luna… both pretty mercurial, which I bet you knew already!”

(Charles) “Well, yes – but it’s a probability thing; if 10% of the Nox’s that are not bound disapprove of others being unbound, and half of them move to interfere… on the average, they may each wind up being opposed by a fraction of a Charles-Nox combo, by one, or by many. It’s hard to say without actual observations to try and get a basis from!”

(Mercury) “So you see our problem… unlike him, we can’t see into any universe but our own without GOING there. While that would be a fun vacation, we had a hard enough time doing well enough in the Games to get time for you!”

(Saturn) “Though if your plans DO work, we might not have to worry about that so much. Our stars are ascending at the moment.”

(Charles) “Well… as I said… at this point I don’t think there’s a lot of choice!”

(Mercury, chuckling) “Not really, no. The cycle is changing. I’m not sure how much of that is you and how much of that is Yu-Shan herself. But you’ve made things more interesting!”

(Charles) “That’s a good thing I think… otherwise the eons would get boring!”

(Saturn) “Even if you are messing with things even the Solar Deliberative stayed well away from. I am NOT looking forward to the weaving from this. Oh, yeah! You do realize if you free Nox, HER (indicating Catherine, and allowing her to remember) powers are going to be affected by that?”

(Catherine) “What!?”

(Mercury) “Don’t look so astonished! You hear him talking to you.”

(Charles) “That did seem likely… although the usual voice was female that’s not a big deal for a god on your level.”

(Mercury) “Nah, that was Ayuji talking to her… And that fellow who came out was a Nocturnal alternate of somebody here. Hey, Saturn, wasn’t the signature linked to one of Nox’s equivalents to yours?”

(Charles, to Catherine) “Uhrm… well, I will need you to promise not to pass the information around for six weeks!”

(Catherine) “Oooh boy… um. Lady Mercury, if I can be so bold… just how dangerous is this information?’

(Mercury) “Pretty! You’d better swear that oath.”

(Catherine, doing so – even if the way that the meaning of words that she’d never heard before forced their way into consciousness was more than a bit unnerving… What kind of language FORCED you to understand it when spoken?) “Okay, done!”

(Charles) “Well… Much of Gaia’s energies are tied into Creation to maintain it’s physical reality. She had help however… Yu-Shan is Gaia’s “sister” – and she is unconscious because HER energies are tied into creation to maintain it’s mental and destiny structures. Ayuji, the Weaver Who Is Her Own Thread is Yu-Shan’s Feitch soul – and is better known as the Loom of Fate. The basic problem is that Yu-Shan is dying; attempting to alter her geomancy was probably not really a good idea – and there are several other factors and overstrain. Thus… I am constructing a stabilization system for Creation to relieve the strain on Yu-Shan and allow her to detach without destroying the universe and working on healing her. If she is not healed… all too soon she will die, and become a new Neverborn. The city will be sucked into the Labyrinth, the gods will be thrown into oblivion or – at best – become monsters of the underworld and Creation – deprived of half it’s support and tied to a Neverborn at it’s core – will be in a race between collapsing into the Labyrinth and dissolving into the Wyld. (He paused briefly) There are a lot of things to fix!”

(Catherine, trying to process all the implications) “Wait, WHAT?”

(Charles) “ know that’s quite a chunk of exposition… but you did ask!”

(Saturn) “Altering her geomancy… was the best option out of an assortment of bad ones.”

(Mercury) “Let’s see… there was the supercharger array, the dispersal Manse network, the “just feed him to a shinma” plan… By the way, that one would have made him very cross in the other shards!”

(Saturn) “It would have put him out of his misery, you must admit.”

(Charles) “Ah well! I haven’t seen what the other options were, so…”

(Mercury) “But yeah… I get the feeling you want to fix Nox, right? (her gaze went unfocused for a few moments)… Scratch that, you already have. A good start, anyway.”

(Charles) “Well, amongst other things; I’ve restored sanity to OUR version and a few hundred others, but that’s going to be a long-term thing – depending on how many other versions of me get involved of course.”

(Mercury) “Well, YOU’RE the one who’s going to deal with them! I’m pretty sure not all versions of you are all sweetness and light.”

(Saturn) “And we have enough headaches dealing with ONE of you.”

(Charles) “I’m sorry about that!”

(Mercury) “Yeah… if you start messing with us directly, that’s going to be a problem! For one thing… you weren’t on the list.”

Saturn gave Mercury SUCH a LOOK.

(Charles) “Well… elsewhere various other combinations of Incarnae are probably in charge… What list?”

(Mercury) “Nothing too important. Hey, do you know the spot where Za’el merged with the Manse? Because I do!”

(Charles) “Nope! Where is it?”

(Mercury) “Let me have some more of those sweets, and I’ll show you!”

Charles passed her another box!

(Mercury) “Tasty! And… it’s the center of the factory floor. See, from this rumor I heard back when we lived in Meru, he got fed up with how much Autochthon was changing his soul structure…”

That was quite an involved story – although it could be summarized as “Za’el got worried that Autochthon was going to replace him and merged with the Manse.”

Charles – thanks to having incorporated a Synergistic Overmind operating outside of fate into his own mind and to the Privacy Manse – was still, despite the distraction attempt, wondering about “the list”. Hm… it looked like even his deductive powers didn’t extend to pre-creation material that had been concealed by Jupiter or the other Maidens…

Well, that wasn’t that much of a surprise!

There were always ways around though! Grandfather Richof probably wouldn’t do – but he DID have a link and a gate to Great-Grandmother (?) Gauderis! He could ask her!

(Gauderis) “Aden? Have you completed those artifacts yet?”

(Charles) “Not quite! I’ve got the manses I’ll need ready though, and the artifacts, and plans, and most other things… For yours I need to get some ingredients from the Hannya!”

(Gauderis, with a vague rumbling and grinding of internal components) “Well! That was… insanely fast.”

(Charles) “Not that fast! I’m not done yet… But I was referred to you for a question about a list!” (and he explained).

(Gauderis) “Grr… Fates. How frustrating! They appeared when we started interacting with each other, and none of us could remember who actually made them! Surely at least two of us were involved, so we compared subselves, and mythoses, and geomancies – but none of us could determine who made them, or what combinations! What a breach in our vigilance! And… they were INCOMPLETE. At least with Nox, Rametheus knew who was responsible! And Oramus, Isidoros, and the Dragon’s Shadow FINISHED the job! For the Fates, all we had was… a list of speculations.”

(Charles) “Ah, the list of possible origins then! Did you finish them up?”

(Gauderis) “Hrm… we rediscovered Yu-Shan before that happened, and then we got distracted by what she had eaten.”

Ah, that would be the Games of Divinity!

(Gauderis) “I was never a high possibility, anyway… But what do you need the list FOR?”

Charles had to think about that for a moment… After all, he’d described how it had come up – but what DID he need it for?

Well, it would be a VERY interesting ingredient in a loom-supplement artifact, and he might well need one of those!

He explained.

(Charles) “Had Yu-Shan wandered off or something?”

(Gauderis) “Why yes! She had no interest in the games of kings and swords and left to find her own things to do. Then Adrian found her floating in the far darkness, told us, and we packed up to retrieve our wayward baby sister. We were bored anyway.”

(Charles) “Hm… so no one knows who made the fates, they arrived incomplete… sort of… tenuous? I’ve seen that with an item I’ll be making in about four and a half years now, but which showed up in someone’s possession already.”

(Gauderis) “Exactly. Now I’m told they became more distinct from one another when Creation was finished-and their agents in me seem to show that – but I’ll always know them as those five stony sisters who confused us so much!”

(Charles, once again leaping to conclusions) “So… they most likely arrived from a possible future – and their nature is to guide the course of history towards a particular goal; almost certainly the one that creates and sends them back since other futures will not be unique. Their arrival – first (whatever that means) would automatically cut off other possible futures from doing the same thing by decreasing their probability until they’re too tenuous to have an effect. Thus they will know that some events are NECESSARY (and will force them), but others may be irrelevant. Nox… would be a counterpart, existing to unify the remaining possibility lines. Before Nox was created… a sheaf of possible universes would have branched off. The ones we’re in contact with are those which also produced a version of Nox. I wonder it it’s a transfinite set or not? And… they’ve become more complete as they near the time of their creation and their existence becomes more certain. Once that time is passed, and they’ve been created and sent back… they should be complete.”

(Gauderis) “When my devas have spoken to their agents, they say time doesn’t flow the same for us as it does gods and mortals. Is this true?”

(Charles) “Yes… Each world-body has it’s own timestream. I would guess that yours is relatively slow since stability is one of your aspects. Since Devas and Primordials are naturally outside of fate… time need not be quite so linear for them; thus the Broken-Winged Crane and the fates themselves.”

(Gauderis) “The King tried to put controls on that when we made Creation. He was successful… mostly. Less so these days, it seems – but that is what happens when you expel the creators!”

(Charles) “Well, it does make things a lot simpler to keep time more or less linear… someone is meddling with it though; that may be possible simply because Ayuji and Nox are able to act more effectively now – and can probably choose to permit exemptions.”

(Gauderis) “I miss Ayuji… all she wanted was for things to MAKE SENSE.”

(Charles) “Well, she’s doing better now!”

(Gauderis) “Ah! You had better be careful with her! If she dies, all your hard work will be for naught!”

(Charles) “I try to make sure that nobody gets hurt!”

(Gauderis) “Now, your list… if you’re wanting a physical copy, He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word had a copy, though I THINK he was one of the ones who suffered feitch death. I have no idea who he might be.”

(Charles) “Hm… He’s now Elloge, the Sphere of Silence – and a female Yozi”.

Information on what they used to be like would probably help fix them! And Gauderis would want to know what had happened to all her friends.

(Gauderis) “He… he would eat the knowledge we had accumulated and let us cut him open when we needed it again. Thus, He Who Bleeds the Unknown Word. I see that fetich death took away his voice as well as his manhood.”

Hm… Given that Yozi’s current form, he might have to pay Elloge a visit when he went to Malfeas. Everything in Elloge was iconography.

(Charles) “Well… more fixing!”

(Gauderis) “I’ll hold you to that!”

Gauderis broke contact just in time for Mercury to finish the story; she’d happily gone into an explanation of Za’el’s journeys across Creation to find the components for certain gods. Of particular interest, Lytek…

Charles found that very interesting! Even if he’d thought that Lytek had been a later replacement!

(Mercury, nudging his shoulder) “See, kid, your god Lytek was originally just a god of reflected light. He just wound up with a field promotion!”

Charles considered that fair enough – and rather appropriate symbolically!

(Mercury) “But Za’el made him from high-quality materials, and that’s why he has the position he does today!”

(Charles) “Well, I like him! Za’el did a really good job!”

(Saturn) “Of course you do, kid. Speaking of jobs… how would you feel about an official position with the Bureaucracy?”

(Charles) “Er… I’m sort of busy right now… What sort of job? And maybe later?”

Aaagh! Audits!

(Mercury) “The Bureau of Heaven could use a straight-shooter like you to shake the place up. I’d have to talk about it with the Sun, of course, but we could get you a position in the Division of Infrastructure. And maybe in a few months. Years? We’d have to get another pair of avatars out.”

(Charles) “Oh! Well, that will be long after this project is over… it should work out; otherwise that sword from the future probably wouldn’t have arrived..”.

He finished up the tour. Catherine needed the time to think anyway! It was fairly obvious that she was more than a little freaked out by all this – and was suddenly putting a LOT more urgency on the “WHAT are YOU!?!?!?” question!

Well, to be fair, virtually everyone else had already asked him that at this point.

(Saturn) “Thank you for hosting us, Charles.”

Well, really… it was sort of required if you were in heaven and they came to visit! Turning on the Veilward would have given him about a 60% chance of diverting them into another universe in theory – but that would have made a HORRIBLE mess!

(Charles) “You’re quite welcome! I’m sorry it’s so much trouble for you to get out and about these days… I’ll have to think about ways to make that easier… perhaps an avatar-making booster artifact?”

(Mercury) “Ooh! More avatars to get to more places at once… it would be nice to get the solar system fully mapped.”

(Charles) “Oh! That I should be able to get for you… (he pulled a map from I AM) Here you are! Is that what you wanted?”

(Mercury, who was not at all surprised by that) “I thought it was running around somewhere! I’ll have to catch up to it.”

(Saturn) “Oh, and Charles, a small favor?”

(Charles) “What do you need?”

(Saturn) “Your Song of Creation will overlap with Calibration. Could you delay its completion until my annual contest with the Sun begins?”

Every year, at the Carnival of Meeting – the third day of Calibration – the Sun and Saturn had a contest. It could be anything. She had always lost the contest, and no one knew what would happen if she won!

Personally, Charles doubted that it would be anything much. Despite the mythology about the “Unconquered Sun” and it being a part of his nature… he was a god with attributes and charms, not a defining part of reality. If he got beaten… well, he got beaten! Better luck next time!

Did they have some enormous bet riding on it?

(Charles) “Hm… I don’t know! I can try – but if it comes to a choice between finishing and inviting some disaster while waiting, I’ll have to finish!”

(Saturn) “We shall see.”

(Mercury) “Hey, come on! I want to visit Venus’s baths before the Games need us again!”

(Charles) “I can give you a quick lift if you can use it!”

(Mercury, producing a giant kite out of nowhere) “Nah, we’re good. I just need a high enough takeoff point, and I can fly us both there!”

(Charles, switching things back to the perfect privacy wards) “Well… I seem to have started off Deva-Blooded – but that didn’t have much effect before I exalted as a Solar when I was eight. Lytek and probably Devon had been doing a bit of tinkering with things though, and these days I probably qualify as a Primordial too. I needed to do a lot of expanding to get enough capacity to fix things!”

Hm… She’d never been to Aden had she? He’d had over… a few demons, a couple of gods from school, various Sidereals and Solars, some random young women, Righteous Hala, a few ghosts, some Raksha, some Dragon-Blooded, some Scientists and Bureaucrats, and lots of refugees – but no Nocturnals that he knew of! Even Astrid hadn’t been over…

(Charles) “Well… if you’d like a look, the world-body is just through here at the moment!”

(Catherine) “Gah! But it shouldn’t be possible for a Solar to be a Primordial…”

(Charles, thoughtfully) “I don’t really see why not… Once you really start working on a world-body most of it comes naturally. Pursue that path far enough, and, well…”

(Catherine) “Surely SOME record would have been left of this happening. That’s… that’s unprecedented!”

(Charles) “Oh well! There seems to be some precedent… the Solar Exaltations have a lot of potentials that are normally latent, but they can be reset to use those instead of the usual set. Thus the current Deathlords are distinguished by possessing Tomb-Bodies, which are pocket worlds for the dead, while Infernals can develop them. It’s just not one of the usual accessible ability sets – but, as I mentioned, Lytek and probably Devon were doing some tinkering!”

(Catherine) “Wha… wow. Let’s see what you’ve done with the place, then.”

Charles – as cheerily as usual – had this aspect play tour guide for a bit while he worked elsewhere. Catherine was quite impressed with the place and asked many, many questions – notably “Can I do this? It looks really useful to have your own internal facilities!”.

(Charles) “I don’t really know! Given the nature of your abilities though… it SHOULD be possible for you to develop a charm which gives entry to a realm that you could learn to generate by some means – but you’d likely have to share with other versions of yourself… want to check? You can drop it if you don’t like it!”

(Catherine) “Wait, you can just GIVE people complex Charms like that?”

(Charles) “Well, it takes a little work! See… this area is undeveloped, so first a demesne, then a manse designed to provide you with a boost to your charm selection with that one in particular! Since the pattern spiders are cranky at the moment – (being reminded, he sent more artifact presents to help out!) but I have more than enough computational capacity available to design it directly now anyway. So… one appropriate Manse… and now you just need to attune to it!”

(Catherine) “You just built a Manse in seconds! Why do you need to work at a factory-cathedral?”

(Charles) “Every tool helps – and Factory-Cathedrals are very good ones once you can tap into them remotely!”

(Catherine) “Huh. Why not just build your own in here, then? You’d be much less likely to get audited when the Bureaucracy finally wakes up!”

(Charles) “I made a couple of dozen – but Dudael is the current incarnation of one of Autochthons second circles and has some very interesting archives!”

(Catherine) “Oookay then… that’s pretty unique.”

She gingerly attuned to the place as Charles waited to see the results of yet another one of his incredibly reckless experiments!

Shortly thereafter… two people came out of the manse! Catherine and a similarly-attired man!

(Charles) “Bye!… I take it that – on emerging into this reality in company – your alternate got swapped into a male form?”

(Catherine) “Yeah, I think so. Maybe there always has to be a difference…”

(Charles) “Oh yes; Pattern Exclusion is built into the universe; I think it’s to avoid possible infinite loops; it’s why people cannot be resurrected… that pattern has been excluded. Since you were already here, normally your alternate could not enter – but your powers are based on bending reality a bit; ergo the pattern shifted to make it different enough to come in!”

(Catherine) “Hmm… I wonder how small that difference can be.”

(Charles) “Nonetheless, while the “crossroads” realm will be a resource for many versions of yourself, you can also cooperate with yourself in adding facilities even if it WILL be on time-share… it should be quite handy and comes with free advice!”

(Catherine) “Well, thanks, Boss. Um… still not wanting anything in return for all this stuff?”

(Charles) “I don’t really need much of anything! I suppose if you pick up any interesting insights from alternates they might be nice to hear about though!”

(Catherine) “Well, okay, then. I just expected a Primordial to be more… demanding.”

(Charles) “Why? I can make the vast majority of the things I need, and still have lots of capacity to spare. I might as well put it to use helping out!”

Huh… was her boss actually building a personal mythos around being benevolent and helpful? Sure, that was NICE – but he must have been pretty sheltered! He could walk into all KINDS of trouble acting like that – or get exploited mercilessly!

(Catherine) “Do any of the others like me know about all THIS?”

(Charles) “Well… not at the moment! I’m trying to keep complications down for the next six weeks or so though!”

(Catherine) “I guess you’ve got a lot on your plate. Need any help with that?”

(Charles) “Help is always handy! If you want to look at the plans… well, I made a coordination and planning manse for it!”

She took a look…

The plans were more complex than ever, what with the Deva inputs – but Charles had, of course, made a manse and special systems to track it and to explain it to people. That way he didn’t have to keep doing it manually!

(Christine) “This is REALLY BIG. Can you really protect all that at once while you’re working on it?”

(Charles) “Well… I do have a fair amount of forces available – but interference is certain and the balance of hidden allies and opponents is uncertain. I can’t be SURE – but I think the odds are much better than not trying!”

(Catherine) “I might have to see what we can do to help out. Subtly, so I don’t break that oath… gah!”

(Charles) “Well… if you think people really need to know, it’s not breaking it to bring them to me OR to give them jobs without telling them why. Or you could bring them to any of the Devas!”

(Catherine) “I’ll see if I can get everyone gathered!”

(Charles) “Oh, if you want to check… Astrid has the information too!”

(Catherine) “Okay then… might as well start working with her, then. Mind if I take some time off? This is going to be like herding cats in some ways!”

(Charles) “Go right ahead! We’re way ahead on the order schedule anyway!”

Session XXIII: My Evil Twin Skippy lives in My Evil Mirror House, the river rising, battles with the alternates, the escape of the Dark Knight and Munchkin, false equipment.

Session XXIV: Zantu Deliberations, visiting Saturn, the Archives of the Arith Vaya, the Glacial Guardian, into the frozen depths, debating with Darvian.

Session XXV:

Session XXVI:

Session XXVII:

Session XXVIII:

Session XXIX:

Session XL:

It’s worth noting that these logs are 1) summarized in places (especially conversations) and 2) from a particular characters viewpoint; they don’t tend to get into much detail on what the other characters are up to.

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Champions, Role Playing Game, RPG]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/aurora-ward-index-ii/feed/0ThothChampions – The Children Of Vosohttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/champions-the-children-of-voso/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/champions-the-children-of-voso/#commentsWed, 01 Oct 2014 04:00:51 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20874]]>Six hundred years ago the Archdaemon Voso, “The Leopard President”, was little more than an image in a magician’s mind – a mental construct into which could be poured the darker energies of the human racemind to give them form. “He” proved useful to that mage – and so that mage taught his apprentices about Voso, drawing on their imaginations to strengthen and improve his personal daemon. The apprentices took notes – including the fact that Voso, like any phantasm, could be strengthened by offering him the attention and dreams of human Children

They encrypted and hid those notes of course. The use of daemons was less than popular where it wasn’t likely to get you killed. Inevitably, it wasn’t all that long before an ambitious young mage using those notes got it very, very wrong – and offered Voso a small, cheap, slave-child, as a blood sacrifice instead of simply teaching the kid about Voso.

Voso acquired a soul – and, not too surprisingly, inherited a certain resentment of the magician who had killed “him” horribly. As the mage made further “offerings”, and his power increased, Voso found a way to introduce that mage to a fate far worse than death. Still, Voso had now been established as a mighty power, an Archdaemon who could readily be paid off with captives and cheap slave-children.

For a time, he did indeed devour them – but having a soul, he was no longer entirely bound by how he was imagined. Keeping them… was far more profitable (and a great deal less gross). Making the occasional talented one a dark mage in his service or assigning them as familiars to those who called upon him… was enormously profitable, and kept him in the minds of many magi.

Today Voso is the Demon President Of Spamming; he attempts to get talented youngsters to call him and make pacts with him by sending them books of demonology, tempting Emails, and similar mass-marketing tactics (he is rumored to have introduced the “Nigerian Prince” Email scam). Those who do… he infuses with demonic energies and teaches dark magic to, drawing on the powers of the underworld. He then either uses them as agents, rents them out, or outright sells them as familiars and as magical beasts and aides.

As with most such pacts, a child with sufficient potential can break free of Voso’s control eventually, although they will retain their powers. What they do after that… is up to them.

Dance Of Time; Generic Limitation (Cannot be used more than twice per turn.): -½; This is simple; the user is transported a few moments into the past and teleported a short distance – enough to interpose themselves between an attacker and his or her target (thus taking the attack) or to take some other action effectively instantly, as needed.

Tagged: Background, Champions, Character Sheets, RPG, Super Villain Groups]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/champions-the-children-of-voso/feed/1ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXVII – Parental Settlementshttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvii-parental-settlements/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvii-parental-settlements/#commentsMon, 29 Sep 2014 04:10:45 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20872]]>With the initial burst of explanations run down, and Aikiko’s parents at least somewhat aware of her status as a near-divine entity, they had settled down to hoping that Aikiko could get disentangled from all this insanity and go home quietly before she got killed!

Sadly, as Aikiko was well aware, the Solar Exaltation did not work that way; eventually, trouble would find her – and, by extension, THEM – and they were not nearly as well equipped to survive it as her! Of course, that could be improved somewhat if she could persuade them to go for it.

(Aikiko) “Look, if you want me home more often, and away from all this craziness, you’ll have to accept some of it as protection. Otherwise, stuff WILL hunt me down and try to kill me – and you! You have no chance of surviving the kind of stuff I’ve had to deal with without artifact armor and a bit of magic!”

(Yoshiro) “But WHY will things be hunting you? And what do you mean “Artifact Armor”? Magic, well, yes… I’ve seen that – but it’s pretty minor stuff!”

(Aikiko, manifesting Skoll again.) “This is a really high-powered suit of artifact armor. I can get you some less extravagant armor that looks like normal clothing. And magic is really powerful. As for the stuff after me… a lot of people aren’t happy Solars are back!”

(Yoshiro) “What do you mean “high end”? It looks like a fancy suit from a museum really!”

Hmm. They might have a point about getting her away from the craziness! But she could activate the flight systems easily enough – and used the artifact weaponry on target dummies. They were more than a bit startled by that… it was a suit of “Iron Man” armor? Impressive, but…

(Coatl) “Well, she DID take a fifteen minute swim on hundred-million degree fusion plasma with no real trouble in it! And want to see a magical terraforming?”

(Aikiko) “Those are pretty fun. How fast is Charles doing them now, Diego?”

(Diego) “At the moment every day or so… he wants to get well ahead of the demand!”

(Aikiko) “Okay, let’s watch the next one then.”

(Diego) “It’s scheduled for a little more than eight hours from now Ms Aikiko!”

(Parents) “What… fixing up after a forest fire or something like that? Is that what’s behind all the pollution-cleanup on Earth these days?”

(Aikiko) “Nah, that’s Elzeard, though Charles did make him. And you’ll see what I mean by terraforming. He makes entire planets habitable.”

Oops! That was too far over the top! They were back to wondering just how high she was right now! Oh well… some sightseeing until Terraforming time? Or call Charles and try to get them initiated?

And a cheetah-girl arrived with pizzas and cokes, just as ordered! Just minutes after she placed the order too!

(Aikiko) “I know that look! Would you like to talk to Elzeard? He’s probably giving a lecture right now. Or I can show you the Singing Forest and the Mardi Gras Manse while we eat!”

(Rei) “Well… if this “Elzeard” is running the pollution cleanup he’s probably busy! So how about this “singing forest”? And… did that… cat-girl… just break the SOUND BARRIER for a PIZZA DELIVERY?”

Clothes make for more wind drag, and they REALLY chafed when you were running that fast, and they DID have fur all over, and were fairly young… Most of them were – quite practically – making do with caps and the Resplendent Butler’s Accouterments to make clothes if they were needed for something. After all, once you’d gone around a few times with the fey shapeshifting you… body shyness generally wasn’t an issue any more.

It was even prettier than before! The squirrels were getting into flower-arranging, the birds seemed to be gradually improving their compositions, and there were some monkeys joining in on percussion (on tree-trunks, chime-fruit, and resonating logs) these days. Still, they were in harmony with the birdsong. They just weren’t as practiced yet… Still no strings though! No doubt the spiders would be making string-nets soon enough – probably followed by gorillas on woodwinds or something.

The Tanaka’s found the forest… beautiful, but more than a little odd! Especially the fruit-juice waterfalls that became delightful wines as they plunged into forest pools! The delightful fruits, pleasant grottos, and general freedom from pests could be accomplished with landscaping, the musical birds… well, at a glance that wasn’t so different from what birds did anyway. Ongoing transmutation effects scattered across many square miles… was much harder to explain away. It required a LOT of magic! Still, the place was very relaxing – and insistently, if subtly and gently, said “reality is not what you thought”, “enormous resources”, and “vast power devoted to health, beauty, and hospitality”.

The glasses of wine weren’t hurting the mellow and accepting mood either.

Still, even after that, they had an hour or so let until the terraforming time came up late that evening – so Aikiko took her parents to a hobbit inn for dinner! There were – as usual – a variety of fantasy beings around. Perhaps it was fortunate that her parents were already a bit tipsy! It made it MUCH easier for them to accept the oddness – and being served by a character straight out of a movie… The meal, and ale, was – of course – delicious!

(Aikiko) “Hobbits are great at cooking and brewing, but then all First Circles are good in their specialties.”

(Yoshiro) “Wait… this “friend” of yours… he’s creating PEOPLE who are… more or less PERMANENTLY LOCKED INTO THEIR ROLES? He’s… building their chains INTO THEIR HEADS? That’s GROTESQUE! Does he go around calling himself “Doctor Moreau” and cackling madly as he runs his experiments?”

(Aikiko) “Actually… he’s imitating the creators of the universe – and unlike them, he would never, say, convert a hobbit into a refreshing drink.”

Actually, she wasn’t entirely sure that THAT had started until after everyone got crammed into Malfeas – and then explained THAT.

(Parents) “Gah!”

(Aikiko) : “The universe is a much weirder place than I thought it was.”

(Rei) “Er… how many directives are in OUR heads them? Is everything that’s “just the way people are”… something that was programmed in?”

(Aikiko) “It’s a little more complicated with us. They made us have greater aspirations and dreams… and made us weak. That way, we’d pray to them, and they’d feed off that. But the gods weren’t happy under the titans’ rule, and gave some humans power like I have to fight them. The titans didn’t see it coming until it was too late to do anything about it.”

(Yoshiro) “So you’ve… basically been turned into a living weapon even WITHOUT that armor?”

(Aikiko) “Pretty much, yeah. Now, that’s not the ONLY thing I can do with that power, but it’s what the greatest gods intended!”

(Rei) “Dear… Isn’t there ANY way you can get rid of it? It sounds like… you get a few neat trickes to distract you from basically… being a disposable artillery shell to be fired at an enemy!”

(Aikiko) “Sigh… the only way to do that is to kill me or destroy my soul… Er, souls. That’s another thing: the hun and po are real.”

Her parents didn’t find THAT too to believe… They’d both seen a few things, although Yoshiro had seen a lot more.

That was kind of odd really? Her father… did computer consulting and analytical work from home; when had he run into magic?

(Yoshiro) “Well… before I went independent… I used to work in intelligence! And enough reports came in that it was pretty obvious that some really weird stuff was out there!”

(Aikiko) “Huh, so you – wait, YOU were a SPY?”

(Yoshiro) “Well… intelligence analysis! I was one of the people who sat at a computer terminal and tried to put the pieces together – even if it was a briefing on a terrorist group that was using sorcery to get by the guards at important facilities… One day though… I was out for coffee and this weird guy wrapped in wind came through, and wiped out some records we’d been about to go to work on – and everyone who’d been there at the time just… quietly covered up and erased any evidence that he’d ever been through! Without even seeming to notice that they were doing it! And I started to wonder just how often I HADN’T been missed… So I took early retirement and started my own business!”

(Aikiko) “Ah, that sounds like an Air Aspect Terrestrial! They’re stealth specialists… like I am now… I might have to take you by the privacy manse, for your own safety. It lets you store your memories in it, and nothing other than you deciding to tell someone about them can make you reveal them.”

Manses took some explaining!

(Aikiko) “But… it’s almost time for the terraforming! Let’s get a good view!”

The terraforming was the usual semi-casual dramatic display – although her parents found it quite sobering once assured that it wasn’t just some special effects. If there were people around with THAT kind of power… why was the earth still in one piece?

(Aikiko) “Charles can do stuff I can’t. For whatever reason, he’s able to form a world out of his soul, which we’re in right now. And THAT is helpful for building up infrastructure! And once you have enough of that, like Manses, you can get pretty inventive…”

(Yoshiro, weakly) “I suppose it would be…”

(Aikiko) “Charles is very good about boosting his own powers with Manses and Artifacts!”

(Rei) “And… you recommend that we visit these “Privacy” and “Winding Way” manses at the very least? Well… you have had more experience with this stuff than we have apparently!

(Aikiko) “Yes indeed. They’ll keep you safe from mind control and give you some magic you can use to defend yourselves.”

(Rei) “Well… I suppose we might as well do it then! Although… perhaps in the morning? It’s getting awfully late and I’d like to sleep on this a bit!”

(Aikiko) “Sure thing!”

Aikik0 set up accommodations for them while they were sleeping. They’d be staying for a bit – the place was SO welcoming, and there was a lot to see – and Yoshiro would be able to use the virtual computer (better than almost anything on Earth) that came with Adenic Thaumaturgy to run his business just fine from Aden. All they’d need would be for Aikiko to lock up the house – which shouldn’t be a problem!

So I’ve been re-reading my copies of Paths of Power and something’s bothering me, specifically the human racial magical path. It mostly seems concerned with blowing shit up. Don’t get me wrong, a healthy love of explosions is an essential part of humanity. However, in DnD at least, humanities main schtick is their adaptability. With that in mind, wouldn’t it make more sense to either A) Put together a list of spells that emphasize adaptability or B) Let humans simply elect one path to get for free in lieu of having a racial magical path to represent that humans specific tradition/culture/personal inclination?

-TommyNihil

A “path of adaptability” could make sense – but there just aren’t that many suitable spells. Looking through the system reference document we have:

Level One: Endure Elements (Abjuration, although a case might be made for Comprehend Languages. You might even be able to stretch it to a personal-only version of Enlarge or Reduce Person – but why?).

Level Two: Alter Self (Transmutation) or perhaps Resist Energy (Abjuration). Resist Energy is a bit of a stretch, but it’s not TOO bad.

Level Four: Polymorph (Self only variant, Transmutation). Really, this is about the last word in “adaption”. It pretty much defines the outer limits of the field.

Level Five: No suitable spell.

Level Six: Contingency (Evocation. The Transformation spell is not suitable due to the magic item material component requirement – which makes little sense for a racial ability. Of course Contingency is about planning, not adaptability – but it comes closer than the other available spells at this level).

Level Seven: Etheral Jaunt (Transmutation). Another serious stretch – jumping to another plane has very little to do with adaptability – but, once again, I’m short of candidate spells at this level.

Level Eight: Iron Body (Transmutation. This has material component problems – how did this become a racial attribute when the component would be impossible to obtain in many settings or pre-iron age? Still, it’s the only remotely suitable spell at this level, and I’ve got to pick SOMETHING.

Level Nine: Shapechange (Transmutation).

Those really don’t go together very well. Worse for a racial path… many of them are concerned with turning the user into something other than human, and that makes very little sense. “My races basic nature is… all about giving up being a member of my race”?

I can think of some additional “adaptability” spells – say one that gives you some temporary skill ranks, one that lets you see in the dark, one that lets you blend in to alien cultures, and spells like Water Breathing for more exotic environments – but temporary skill ranks tend to step on the role of skill-based characters. Blending into a culture is rarely all that useful unless everyone can do it – and even then it’s not useful in a lot of (combat-based) games. Getting along in an exotic environment means that humans would have a special adaption for places that humans do not normally go – and would either rarely-to-never come up or would limit many adventures to humans only unless the GM makes suitable magic available for everyone else (which spoils the point of a racial path). That’s why “Water Breathing” doesn’t see a lot of use in most games.

Thus I picked a path of “blowing things up!” because that path IS exceptionally well-adapted to the environment of most games – where the ability to kill and destroy is one of the most vital things about a character. In d20, “I can kill it/them!” is probably the most adaptable power there is – which is why I gave it to humans.

OK, considering human behavior compared to most other earthly creatures… I could make a very good argument for a path of sex magic that – at higher levels – would presumably let you produce weird crossbreeds, but it REALLY wouldn’t fit into most settings, would call for a LOT of special rules – and would be oriented towards producing non-humans, which makes very little sense for a human racial path. Still, in reality… the only “higher” species I can think of offhand that are as all-the-time sexually-oriented as humans are dolphins and bonobos.

Letting humans select a path would indeed be very adaptable – but adding special racial bonuses can be quite troublesome. Worse, the racial paths are supposed to be one of the defining elements of a species, remaining unchanged even when the individual is transformed – which puts giving humans a choice of paths pretty much on the same level as letting them choose whether they have carbon-based or silicon-based metabolisms. It’s not that you can’t do it – it’s simply that I don’t think that it really works.

Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t do it that way if you want – and if you come up with a good Path of Adaptability I will be more than happy to put it up here if you’d like – but that’s why I thought that a propensity for blowing things up suited humans very well indeed.

Tagged: Background, d20, Game Rules, Magic, Role Playing Game, RPG]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/26/humanity-and-the-paths-of-power/feed/1ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXVI – Parking Your Unicorn.https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvi-parking-your-unicorn/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvi-parking-your-unicorn/#commentsThu, 25 Sep 2014 04:47:05 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20868]]>In Yu-Shan, Dumenza, the Calibration Gate, was busy waking up his second circles – the twelve central gates of Yu-Shan and a few of the others. The Celestial Lions… hadn’t even known that most of those were Manses; it would have been a MOST unpleasant surprise to discover that they could be affected by geomantic disruptions during an emergency evacuation. A good thing that they were getting ready!

Righteous Hala… was recovering from excessive laughter. Even a Lunar’s endurance had limits! And that set of six “My Little Pony; Friendship Is Magic” manses – each producing a tailored rank-5 Hearthstone designed to work together with the others – had been entirely too much! She pretty much knew what he’d say if she asked him too… “They seemed like a nice idea!” – and he wouldn’t get why she found it so funny.

Oh, just wait until she showed Lytek and got the expression on HIS face… For all she knew, Luna was visiting regularly!

More seriously though… “They were a neat idea, so now they’re real! What else is world-building for?” was definitely more Primordial than Exalt! And the boy was still far, FAR, too inclined to take “that would be neat!” as a reason for doing almost ANYTHING – at least as long as it didn’t hurt anybody.

Over in the Hedgerows, the Blatant Beast was updating! Hat-mounted cameras, hands-free microphones, notebooks, pens, and recording systems. If people were going to be presenting stories like that… It was going Paparazzi! You never knew when you might need multi-channel narration with the appropriate gods commentating!

“Telling it your way” had always been a pretty big power – and a very easily abused one. The temptation to present yourself as flawless, and all opponents as more corrupt than Satan, was pretty big. It was, after all, a classic human frailty. Combine that with forty or fifty Solars using super-linguistic charms to produce perfect versions of what THEY wanted to be the truth and it was surprising that the records made as much sense as they did – which wasn’t much. It would have been better if they could have at least agreed on one version – but we’re talking about Solars here, as well as Gods and Sidereals trying to edit things to produce specific effects later on…

The goods of history, commentary, and so on had been bemoaning the lack of decent records from the Primordial War for thirty millennia. It was NOT going to happen again if THEY had anything to say about it!

Meanwhile… Aikiko was calling home.

(Rei Tanaka) “Ah, hello Aikiko! It’s been a couple of months… (with a very slight parental edge) I take it that you’ve been busy?

Oh dear! She was kind of torn between coming clean and making up something. After all, it would all be blatantly obvious in a couple of months, if that.

The pause lengthened, as Aikiko’s mother started spinning ever more disastrous scenarios in her head!)

(Aikiko, more or less giving in to the inevitable) “Hey, have you been hearing about these crazy ads in the papers? That’s what I’ve been investigating!”

(Rei) “What, the “new planets opening” things? It would have been kind of hard to miss them! Since they seem to be worldwide it would be a LOT of effort for a prank – and a lot of people in refugee camps have been vanishing too. So SOMETHING is definitely up!”

(Aikiko) “Yeah, that’s what I think too.”

(Rei) “What have you turned up?”

(Aikiko) “Well… this is going to sound crazy, but somebody’s come up with gate-based faster-than-light travel.”
Well, that was fairly obvious if you took the ads at face value – and they weren’t physics types.

(Rei) “Well… I take it that the ads are more or less honest then? THAT’S going to upset the status quo around the entire world!”

(Aikiko) “I know, right? People will be leaving all over the place, governments will be trying to control the new planets, aliens might or might not be involved… it’s going to be crazy!”

(Rei) “Time to lay in a few months worth of supplies I think! At least! Things will probably settle down somewhat in a few months – I hope!”

Aikiko was abruptly concerned. There might well be some pretty major disruptions! She might have to make arrangements to keep them safe. Well… she had a moderately large house with an onsite skateboard park amd a nice view of the singing forest over in Aden…

(Aikiko) “To be honest, I’ve talked to the guy responsible. He’s pretty obliging. I know he wouldn’t object if I moved you into my place in his world!” (Singing forest, actually!)

(Rei, with some shock) “THE guy responsible? HIS world? Er… (and the obvious thought; Oh-Oh! She may be on something stronger than usual!)

(Aikiko, sighing to herself) “I’m actually sober right now. Would you like to see? I can have him open up a gate. Seriously, you might need to stay with me for those few months!”

(Rei, after a very definite pause) “Uhm, yes… a gate would work…”

(Aikiko, calling up Charles) “Hey, Charles, can you open up a gate? I… need to convince my parents I’m not on something strong! Um… not in the front yard, though! Too many questions! Go for the garage.”

She asked Rei to shut the garage door first!

That was easy enough after opening a scrying link. Charles sent an… uhm… pony to meet her! A unicorn! If that didn’t convince her mother, nothing would! (Well, OK, if it didn’t he’d just thave to send something else.)

(Rei, with some incredulity) “Erg… is the person behind all this basing his efforts on CARTOONS?”

(Unicorn) “Not all of them! Sometimes he bases them on novels, or movies!”

(Rei) “Oh good lord… No wonder he doesn’t seem to be thinking about the consequences! In real life things don’t usually go conveniently along with the plot!”

(Unicorn) “He does have advisors who’ve kept him from going completely off the rails, but he is a handful!”

(Rei) “So… a child who can… warp the world enough to bring cartoons to life, with little appreciation of consequences, and apparently the ability to affect the entire world – or more than one? Er… No offense to you that is.”

(Unicorn) “Very perceptive, ma’am! Charles is very young and very powerful! And he can only terraform one planet at a time!”

(Rei) “Oh dear… and my daughter is somehow entangled with this? I’m not sure that cocaine or heroin or some such wouldn’t have been easier to deal with!”

(Unicorn) “Oh my! I think you need to talk with her, then!”

(Rei) “Well, this… hole in the air… is supposed to lead to “her place”! So…”

And Rei worked up her nerve and stepped through – emerging right at the doorstep, with a commanding view of the singing forest – where she abruptly found that she needed to sit down for awhile…

And Yoshiro arrived home, hit the garage door opener, and found a unicorn and a hole in the air in his garage!

(Yoshiro) “WHAT the HELL?!?!?”

(Unicorn) “Ah, hello sir! Your wife is currently visiting your daughter at home. Would you like to join them? The singing forest is lovely this time of day!”

Yoshiro looked for a moment, shook his head – and experimentally closed and reopened the door.

(Unicorn) “Hello again sir!”

(Yoshiro) “Erg… And why is there a technicolored unicorn in my garage?”

(Unicorn) “Charles sent me to monitor the gate and explain things to your wife!”

(Yoshiro) “Oh boy… And what was it that was being explained to my wife?”

The Unicorn told him about the ads, and the visit with Aikiko.

(Yoshiro) “Well… it’s weirder than most things, but I’ve seen a more than a few other oddities in my time… I suppose I’d better join her then!”

And in he went! He had seen some magic and such in his life, and there was no use in arguing when it popped up again!

Aikiko… had a splendid house, in a lovely location – and with a couple of cheetah-kids acting as servants and runners. It was really quite impressive – although it was obvious that the skate ramp, and the skate loop, shouldn’t be possible to skate on all the way. (Actually it was downhill all the way around – regardless of which way you went)!

(Cheetah-Girl) “Hello! Can I get you something? Sandwiches? A drink? Pocket Computer? Phone? Book?”

(Mr. Tanaka) “Where’s my daughter?”

(Cheetah-Girl) “She’s in England! Doing some investigating in the Hedgerows and bringing in a hundred and thirty young slaves!”

(Parents) “WHAT?!?!?!”

(Cheetah-Girl) “According to the notice she sent in she picked them up at a faerie market! And from some gypsies!”

Fortunately, it wasn’t all that long before Aikiko made it in – picking up Samuel and popping over! In the meantime… she asked the Cheetah-Kids to Keep her parents calm and have a soda ready for her!

And… she elected to appear wearing Skoll, albeit with an illusion to make it look like she wasn’t wearing the helmot.

(Rei) “Er… AIKIKO?”

(Aikiko) “Hi Mom! Hi Dad!” (rubbing the back of her head) “I have a lot of explaining to do, so let’s get started!”

And there were explanations at great length. It was pretty hard to believe – but she could produce any amount of supporting evidence, including artifacts, fantasy creatures, gods and elementals, passing spacecraft, and so on – as well as Aden itself, eccentric devas, and any amount of wealth!

Given all that… and that Aikiko was willing to basically drop Aden on top of them… there really was’t be much argument – except for wanting a good explanation of why she was buying child-slaves! And “To rescue them” was pretty straightforward.

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxvi-parking-your-unicorn/feed/0ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXV – Looming Issues, The Deva Is In The Detailshttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxv-looming-issues-the-deva-is-in-the-details/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxv-looming-issues-the-deva-is-in-the-details/#commentsTue, 23 Sep 2014 04:38:52 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20866]]>It was too bad that Zanjaras didn’t want to be relieved of caring for Creation – but it might regard that as it’s purpose! It would seem like a sizeable burden though – and it would still have its role in Yu-Shan. Oh well! He’d just have to figure it out later!

Besides… soon he’d have to turn much of his attention to the Wyld; he still needed some favors from the Unshaped to use in making protective enchantments for Gauderis! Fortunately he wasn’t exactly questing against them; he was perfectly willing to trade, and had enough power to make that feasible! Still… he had been making artifacts that SHOULD be useful to them – but who’s operation was contingent on being nice, keeping Creation around, or both…

Behind Charles things were getting rather frantic! The essence flows that Charles and Yu-Shan’s Devas had been unleashing were quite noticeable – and the signatures were confusing enough to make all kinds of people wonder what was going on even if they hadn’t caught a more direct look.

Fortunately, the remotes weren’t too noticeable… their power-channeling ability was very limited and they could generally pass as minor gods unless someone checked the signature very closely indeed. Even then… their signatures blended into Yu-Shan tolerably well (perhaps too well!) and the city was full of all kinds of weird creatures anyway.

Fortunately, Charles was VERY hard to catch up with when he kept using his transport amulet to teleport around Yu-Shan – and he was on his way to the peak of the dome to see Gaofeng, which was even more restrictive.

That didn’t mean that nobody was going to show up though. Quite a number of things – like powering up the Primal Forge, Increasing fertility and organization around the Cornucopia of All, and the power surges from Heart of the Canals – had been quite obvious from up high enough.

The Aerial Legion wasn’t quite as logical as the Celestial Lions – but it really wasn’t all that complicated if you weren’t professionally paranoid and didn’t focus on his smokescreens of subtle “clues”. “He learns and acts like a kid, he has vast power, he’s mono-maniacally focused, he was friendly, and he was welcome in heaven. That let out Gods (who were normally born “adult”), Yozis, Demons, everything from the underworld, Raksha and Ishvara, Humans, God-Bloods, Dragon Kings, Jadeborn, and all the other minor creatures… Primordials don’t learn like kids, ergo Celestial Exalt. Definitely not Sidereal, and pretty odd for a Lunar. Ergo…

Besides… they’d worked closely with the Solar Exalted in the First Age, and some of those energy effects were… kind of familiar. And that was big. And now he seemed to be… mapping the geomancy of Heaven itself with the cooperation of the Celestial Lions and visits to the Jade Pleasure Dome thrown in. Their sources amongst the Celestial Lions weren’t being as forthcoming as usual (and they didn’t have nearly as much power as they did during the first age, although the command of martial weather WAS still prestigious) – but they knew that there was SOMETHING alive up at the tip of the dome – although they weren’t aware that it was a Deva.

Not to mention his supplying armor and nonlethal weaponry for the entire corps of celestial lions, curing deiphages, wandering around the worst areas of Yu-Shan with no concern at all, creating powerful manses in mere minutes – and having apparently managed to get the Incarnea to authorize him going anywhere he pleased; going into the Heart of the Canals and the Primal Forge demonstrated THAT.

When Charles got to the top of the dome again there was a god already there – a fairly high-end looking fellow too, with winged blue jade armor and a body of storm clouds. That wasn’t a BIG surprise, but it was still a bit of a surprise!

(Charles) “Oh, Hello! Most people don’t spend much time up this high… was there something you needed to do up here too?”

(Vanaroth) “Hail, Charles Dexter Ward! I am Vanaroth of the Aerial Legion. My superiors had sent me up here to ask what you were doing up here. Few come up this high anymore.”

(Charles) “Well… Examining the major geomantic focus-points of Yu-Shan! There’s lots of information to be collected!”

(Vanaroth) “And what do you intend to do with that information in Heaven, of all places? Your behavior is odd, if benevolent.”

(Charles) “Well… there are a lot of things that need to be repaired or upgraded! It’s been a very long time since any serious maintenance has been done, and a lot of things are near-critical! So it’s something of a crash program!”

(Vanaroth) “Hrm… I see, such as the canals. I had an excellent view of that one. But how in Creation did you get access to THAT place? It was supposed to be too dangerous even for the lesser canal gods.”

(Charles) “Luna gave me a writ!”

Charles showed him one of the six originals…

(Vanaroth, with an arched eyebrow) “The ways of Luna are mysterious even to the other Incarnae at times.”

(Charles) “Well, it’s been very useful! The Canals needed fixing very badly indeed!”

(Vanaroth) “What about here?” (He nodded up at the very tip of the dome)

(Charles) “Well, there is a major nexus up here – and they are all crosslinked of course! So there will be some factors from here to consider, even if the amount of work actually needed here is minimal!”

The Aerial Legion did know something about that; they consulted with the geomantic gods about defensive cloud patterns. On the other hand, it was quite obvious that Charles was intentionally keeping things to generalities, rather than specifics – even if it WAS rather hard to be specific about all of Yu-Shan at once.

(Vanaroth) “Just what are you intending to fix up here? Patch up the top of the dome, or go deeper and alter the geomancy? It seems to resist alterations… Violently.”

(Charles) “Well, geomancy has a sort of personality of it’s own – so I’ll see how it’s doing!”

That provoked some confusion…

(Charles) “Was there something you needed?”

(Vanaroth) “Are you planning to do anything intrusive to the Pinnacle of the Sky Dome, or just speak to it? If it weren’t for that writ, I would have to stop you.”

(Charles) “Well, talk first! If something needs fixing… fix it! If you’ll promise to keep the details quiet for another two months, I can get started now!”

(Vanaroth) “Is it really that bad?”

That DID match with why the Lions had been so closed-mouthed lately about the geomancy.

(Charles) “Well… yes. And more complicated than you’d think!”

(Vanaroth) “All right then…” (He swore the Oath) “Let’s hear it.”

(Charles) “Well… there are several projects underway in Yu-Shan, most unauthorized; one is an ill-judged repair attempt that will – at best – collapse the city into the Labyrinth of the Underworld, turn Yu-Shan into a new Neverborn, likely destroy the Incarnae, disrupt Creations elemental poles and laws, and trigger the final collapse of Creation back into the Wyld. Of course… that project is only being considered because the situation is pretty desperate and near the final collapse anyway. So I need to fix it!”

(Vanaroth, in a VERY weary tone) “That sounds like a Sidereal project.”

(Charles) “Well yes – but they do mean well… In any case, there are only a few left to talk too…” (He sent in a probe!) “Gaofeng, the Sky Pinnacle, fourth soul of Yu-Shan! I have spoken already to Cangha, Xiang, Fayuandi, Lianza, You Xin, Dumenza, and many of the others… Will you speak with me as well? It is almost time for the awakening, and it is very important!”

There was a crackle of lightning across the adamant.

(Gaofeng) “I had heard of your coming… what do you intend for the Low-Hanging Star?”
(Charles) “I intend to restore her to health – and full consciousness. It is time for her poles to be unbound from Creation. I ask that you review the plans with me, to ensure that I am not missing any major factors!”

(Gaofeng) “Is it finally time for that? Not that it makes that much difference to me anymore, but it would be a fine thing to be embodied again. Ah… who’s your little friend there? Is that your yomi? What a pretty set of armor! Does he do tricks?”

(Charles) “Ah, this is Vanaroth of the Aerial Legion; since he promised to keep things a secret, I wasn’t bothering to hide contacting you from him… You’ve probably seen them practicing maneuvers and war games and things!”

(Gaofeng): “Oh yes. Nobody is bonded to them? That seems unfair! How do they manage those maneuvers without someone guiding them, then?”

(Vanaroth) “We’re no one’s pets.”

(Charles) “Well, Vanaroth here doubtless knows it much better than I do – but it’s a “chain of command” thing.”

Which Vanaroth was quite happy to recite in its entirety.

(Charles) “Well, to be fair… Gaofeng is considerably older than Creation, saw it’s origins, and is mostly familiar with the gods as theoritical sub-creations entrusted with particular world-functions! He isn’t too familiar with how things have gotten organized since well before the first age! Except, of course, for what he can see looking down from here…”

(Vanaroth) “Sigh… will he and the others throw us out of Heaven? I can’t see that ending without much bloodshed.”

(Charles) “Oh, that’s what this section is about! Since Yu-Shan would like to be more flexible anyway, that dovetails nicely with providing her with multiple aspects – and everyone will have an appropriate place to live!”

(Vanaroth) “Ah! Right! A Yu-Shan for all of us? That seems hard to believe.”

(Gaofeng) “And I can watch it all…”

(Charles) “Well, Gaia said she’d help with the unbinding part! She wants to make REALLY sure that nothing goes unstable there of course!”

(Gaofeng) “Oh, that’s right! I was wanting to ask you: can I broadcast the Games of Divinity in every single variant when I wake up?”

(Charles) “Hm… Probably not a good idea! A lot of the less-powerful residents can’t handle a single view, much less multiple variants!”

(Gaofeng) “Really? You’d think the other Primordials didn’t want them to watch…”

(Charles) “Maybe on just the Tender-Original level? And I think they didn’t!”

(Gaofeng) “But that’s one of my biggest responsibilities! And why would they keep them away? How are they supposed to keep track of the standings?”

(Vanaroth) “What, you haven’t been displaying the lead for the past fifty thousand years?”

(Gaofeng) “I can do much more than that!”

(Charles) “Well yes – but as I said, a lot of them can’t handle it… I could ward them from seeing the display of course, but in that case you might as well restrict it to one level in the first place!”

(Gaofeng) “Sigh… I’ll have to consult with the progenitor when we awaken. There must be SOME alteration she can make. By the Primordial King, you’ve been missing so much!”

(Charles) “Fair enough… after hundreds of thousands of years though I don’t think a few extra weeks will really matter much!”

Somehow… the lightning shrugged.

(Charles) “Do you see anything in the plans that needs changing?”

(Gaofeng) “Hmm. I’m closely linked to Huajen, that ring beneath me. Any alterations performed on his manse-structure will also have to be performed on me.”

(Charles) “Hm… That’s a fairly small tweak on this scale! Is that part of the mismatch? He’s been having trouble with the modified Geomancy of the area…”

(Gaofeng) “I could understand if single minds had trouble with the arrangement. We’re very intimate, you see. I suspect… they simply thought he was a part of me, which is certainly NOT the case.”

(Huajen, piping in) “That’s right.”

(Charles) “Oh, hello! Well, that should be easy enough – provided that neither of you have any objections to the tweaks – which are pretty small in your cases…”

They didn’t – albeit mostly because they WERE very small.

(Huajen) “And we might have to make some arrangement with YOUR kind, god, but that will have to wait until after we awaken. We, at least, are willing to forgive.”

(Charles) “Well, it’s much better if everyone gets along!”

Hm… Next up… Bayanji… He’d sort of been shying away from that! Bayanji could be REALLY embarrassing to deal with – and (sigh…) someplace down in the back of his head… there was still the thought of “Cooties!” lurking.

Still… the temptations of the Palace would have little or no effect on his mental defenses and he HAD to talk to her. Aw shoot! Trapped by his own logic AGAIN. Oh well. Maybe she’d make some useful suggestions for his let-the-girls-move-in arrangement. He stopped by a game store; a good copy of “Jumangi” would probably really amuse the Kickaha!

Now that he was paying attention… the lavender walls DEFINITELY felt like a girl. At least it hadn’t been hard to find any of them so far now that he knew their locations and what to look for – and this place was a comparatively conventional Manse compared to the others… He sent in the usual probe

As the probe whispered through the manse there was that vaguely erotic sensation that he’d gotten the last time – and then there was a return signal. A most lovely androgynous being coalesced before him. Its only clothes were strategically-placed veils of an ambrosial lavender material that smelled wonderful. Its eyes are also lavender – and it has every feature that he would find appealing. Some of the gods, particularly one who looked quite ancient, turned to look. Charles heard one, in a hushed tone, say “Haram.”

Bayanji was slightly disconcerted to realize that – at least as filtered through Charles’s head – the “appealing features” included manse-resonances, hints at the presence of an archive full of magical secrets, the impression of small fuzzy friendly things nearby, and a hint of peanut butter in the drifting scent .She was vaguely familiar with the concept of “children” in THEORY, but actual examples were pretty much outside her experience! Oh well. At least the boy showed SOME of the more classical responses; they just didn’t dominate. The poor thing must be young enough to be confused!

Charles has actually encountered the word “Haram” in his research (and because a hostile dictionary had tried to use it to breach his defenses!). He considered it significant evidence that causality was a lot more complicated than most people thought… after all, “Haram” (literally “a forbidden place”) was the arabic root of the english “Harem” (a private location full of beautiful young sex-slaves) – and “Haram” had different roots of its own. Yet… here it was as the proper name for one of the (supposedly extinct for millennia) types of beings that had once inhabited the Algedonic Palace and had never gone beyond it – where they specialized in pleasure. As a coincidence… that was a bit much!

Still… that was definitely the kind of signature that he’d expect from a First Circle demon or Deva or a limited aspect thereof… He put up privacy wards to cover the geomantic details since he’d gotten an actual manifestation rather than just a communications connection.

(Charles) “Hello! I needed to check with you about the repair plans!”

(Haram) “The Madam acknowledges you, Charles Dexter Ward, and has awaited contact for what has felt like forever. Would that make you happy? It does seem like it would make you happy if she looked.”

(Charles, looking confused!) “Well… I needed to find out if there are any factors to be considered in this section of the plan – and to provide a warning of what the energy flows are going to be like!”

Hm… It looked like this was a projection – but he could see her now, someplace in the Algedonic Palace. She looked much like the haram before him, but was far more luminous and comely… and very, VERY sleepy. But she became just a little more active in her sleep while she read the plans, occasionally moving her hand as she lay in the exquisite bed.

(Bayanji) “Can you really provide that much energy? Yu-Shan has not moved since… well, since I came into existence.”

(Charles) “It should be straightforward enough… I’ve built up enough reserves to more than cover it! And a lot of it can be supplied via geomantic relays.”

(Bayanji) “Then I’ll funnel it through that thing she ate before I existed.”

There seemed to be some jealousy there!

(Charles) “What’s that? Will it have any effect, or just drain off the excess?”

(Bayanji) “I believe that the other Primordials called it the Games of Divinity.”

(Charles) “Ah! That is sort of competition isn’t it? (He notified the Sorrowhands of that intent!) I don’t think it’s quite the same though…”

(Bayanji) “Nothing can destroy the Games of Divinity. I’ve tried my own hand at it, but its pleasure is…”

She trailed off, and simmered in jealousy for a bit.

(Arelis) “Hah! She’s right. Of course, Aros and I wouldn’t exist had Yu-Shan not eaten the Games… but she wouldn’t either. And she KNOWS what would happen if she did somehow destroy them. That would make Yu-Shan unhappy.”

(Charles, to Bayanji) “Oh, I meant on the process… the games really aren’t too important to that part. Still, they are a pleasant confirmation that the forces you embody – even if there are other embodiments as well – hold power over the other Primordials and all Creation even if they have no such pole in their own structure! Few things are more universal than a positive tropism!”

(Charles, to Arelis) “Well, it’s not too surprising that she feels a bit jealous; they ARE closely related after all!”

(Arelis) “I’d never say it to her face, but she should be proud. From listening in on Dumenza and Xiang, Yu-Shan was stumped on the final pole… Other than Ayuji, Bayanji is the most enduring part of milady.”

(Charles) “Hm… She consciously created at least some of hers too? That’s very neat! I was wondering if I was the only one who was doing it that way! I guess that sort of malleability goes with being a Nascent One?”

(Aros) “We never got the chance to ask Autochthon about that… though considering how often he changed his devas…”

(Charles) “He is sort of in to reworking things! I like to try to get them the way I want them in the first place – but the unexpected aspects that pop up are to be cherished! They’re usually the best part!”

(Aros) “You shouldn’t have to worry too much about Bayanji’s process, though. Knowing her, she simply intends to supercharge the Games and get Yu-Shan moving. None of the Third Circles were happy that she was stuck.”

(Charles) “Well, I can see why… she has been in near-stasis – except for the ongoing degeneration – for far too long! But that should soon be fixed!”

(Aros) “Ah, before even then – before we were created. I recall Adrian having to carry her around everywhere even then. But if you can fix even THAT…”

(Charles) “I don’t really know – but even if I can’t fix it YET, I can work on developing a way to do it later! You remember things from before you were created though? Now THAT must be a handy talent to have!”

(Aros) “A function of being created by Fayuandi and your friend Xa’el… Arelis and I needed to know everything about Yu-Shan. Not everything is easily accessible, but her basic functions are.”

(Arelis) “And were there not so much suppressive geomancy still functioning, we could do more!”

(Charles) “Well… not for much longer I hope! And I’m very glad I arranged to consult with you then!”

(Arelis) “For her, we would make all sorts of arrangements. Ah, excuse me, the Sun needs his cup refilled…”

(Charles) “Thank you! And Certainly!”

Hrm… The Sun seemed to have a drinking problem there! Too much Valor! Can he withstand another drink? Must prove that he can! Coming soon, the Ditzy Incarnae! Luna who keeps shapeshifting her own identity and so can’t keep her mind on anything, the Drunken Sun (a great martial arts style too), the Mistress of Endings who keeps cutting her own plans short, the Easily-distracted Venus, the Mercury-who-is-always-lost who never sticks around to get anything done…

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(Charles) “Oh… I’ve had some young women wanting to move in on me recently. Is there anything you’d suggest adding to the facilities for them?”

Now that was something that Bayanji was expert with! Although she didn’t really consider the implications of “wanting to move in on me” sufficiently.

(Bayanji) “Mere single minds? Will that really keep you interested for long?”

(Charles, with some puzzlement… what did he have to do with it?) “Well, there’s no reason not to accommodate them; it’s a fairly simple set of desires compared to some of the things people ask for…”

(Bayanji) “In that case, simply dedicate a jouten to each one if you haven’t already, and keep them on that razor edge between pleasure and satiety.”

That was, after all, the speciality of the Algedonic Palace; keeping the pleasure up as long as possible without having it tip over into jadedness – as opposed to the transcendent pleasure of the Games. More work too.

(Charles) “Er… well, I’ll see what I can do!”

He’d been thinking more along the lines of… a hair salon, an expert chef for room service, some riding trails, and that sort of thing – not going directly for “overload their brains”! Evidently Primordial Deva’s just didn’t think that way… Still, he kind of suspected that auxiliary facilities and pleasures were more deeply satisfying, and more readily sustained, than just hitting the pleasure button in the long run anyway. People continued to go out camping, and canoeing, and so on throughout their entire lives in many cases. Oh well! Not all (or even most) divine beings could get a human perspective! Still, he thanked her for the advice!

Hrm… he had Malinda look around and hire a few good cruise directors, vacation planners, and so on to recommend fun facilities to add and to make arrangements! That would probably be a LOT more suitable to Aden – and it wasn’ts like he had any possible shortage of space to put things in. If it was REALLY weird, the Mardi Gras manse could handle it!

Hm… an Escher golf course might be fun – but something was suggesting… a a Neverborn / Yozi rehabilitation park? Huh. He could make something like that a a place where the Devas in the human racemind could take physical forms. Still… that would call for a LOT of planning, might not be a good idea to put in Aden, and could certainly wait!

As far as control inputs… Hers were more important than Gaofeng’s. She represented the less tangible aspects of pleasure, as opposed to Quan Pen’s more physical ones. Gaofeng’s inputs were minor; both he and Fayuandi are linked mainly to Creation’s adamant. She gave it its toughness, he bestowed its piercing qualities. According to both of them, Autochthon studied them before making his own Pole of Adamant. That was one thing that he and Yu-Shan shared between them!

There was nothing major to replace with Gaofeng and Fayuandi; the qualities of Adamant and the other magical materials of Creation were pretty well fixed by now! They were both VERY important for making local gods in Yu-Shan herself of course (although that process also required Yu-Shan’s involvement) – but it wasn’t as if they’d be going anywhere.

Replacing Bayanji’s input on the “less tangible aspects of pleasure” side was mostly a matter of definition… The god-making would need a little work perhaps – but manses were good at making gods!

Ayuji… was probably going to be the big one. If she was supplying Casuality for all Creation, that would be a big problem! If she was mostly just detecting the errors for repair… spreading wyld zones would help with that; once a causality error propagates into one of those, it should be self-correcting and stop there!

Still… she was the last, and there was no time for stalling around. Off to the loom it was (and to explain to however many Sidereals were there at the moment)! Maybe she was just manifesting the parts that went beyond the Loom as Asna Firstborn and was behind perfect privacy protections?

Hm… Come to think of it, the last time he’d visited, he’d seen TWO types of Pattern Spiders – some were sleeker than the others, and made from different materials.

The Loom Chamber was much as he’d left it the last time; the non-Euclidean twisting and hum of the tapestry, the clicking of the spiders, and the sheer SIZE of the place. As always these days, actual Sidereals were rare – but the celestial lions did indeed have questions!

(Deng) “Come for a second look, have you?” (More quietly) “Is one of THOSE in there?”

(Charles) “Well… one certainly should be! She was pretty integral to the loom…”

He looked around carefully! There were probably several things going on here at once. And he had to look for… Deva Patterns, to see if there was something hiding in the patterns of the Loom (such as that voice from before), seeing what use was being made of the wyld zones across creation (how threads went in and out, and whether or not that “patched” threads that were getting frayed (at least by his theories it should, since all individuals could redefine themselves to at least SOME extent in a Wyld Zone – and when they re-emerged, they would essentially be new threads, thus eliminating any errors), and took a careful look at the various types of pattern spiders – if necessary, using Instant Genius Method, even if that DID amount to asking that the Pattern Spiders help explain the loom to him…

(Deng) “I think one of the Sidereals was looking, too. Studying the Loom even more intently than usual, anyway…”

Hmm… There was the voice, still repeating its insistence that it keep hidden. There was a Deva-presence, although it was unusually distant and took some time to make out. The Earth Wyld zones were easiest to spot; there was some interconnection and patching there, although the Loom couldn’t penetrate too far in those. The pattern spiders were terse as always, but were willing to answer questions about the Wyld / Creation interaction. The spiders themselves… well, they were all mechanical – but the older models were divine in origin. The sleek, newer models, on the other hand, had well-hidden deva signatures – and were NOT found in the celestial records.

(Charles, to the Deva-Presence) “Hello! I’m Charles! (List of the other Devas) have talked to me, how about you?”

He checked with some of the newer spiders too!

The Deva-Presence… TRIED to answer, but was stopped by that other voice – as if had cried out and abruptly been silenced. That wasn’t at all nice!

One of the newer-model spiders was talking to him though! He told it that he needed to talk to Ayuji, and inquired about that voice that wanted to remain hidden! Had the feitch spun off an aspect based on paranoia?

(The spider, transmitting and clicking rather than actually speaking) “Query: Thread-Chaos Interaction. Mortal beings are inherently malleable without protection, and have a 90% percent chance of alterations to mind and body. Proper channeling of Wyld Essence, whether through control of internal Essence, geomantic manipulations, or other means, ensures that these alterations are not harmful. The Loom can ease causality errors by converting Wyld energies to Primordial protocols, set when Yu-Shan was linked.”

(Charles) “Hm… Yu-Shan will shortly be delinking from Creation to a large extent; will additional compensating mechanisms be necessary on Creation’s end? The loom is strongly linked with both causality and reincarnation – but large areas of Creation seem to be operating almost independently now.”

(Spider, after a pause) “Query: Ayuji, the Weaver Who Is Her Own Thread.” (Straining) “The Fetich of Yu-Shan, Ayuji was the only source of causality outside of a Primordial’s mythos before the Great Creation. Ayuji and her direct subordinate Zanjaras were linked to the Elemental Pole of Spirit. When Yu-Shan fell asleep ERROR CANNOT INTERPRET MUST STAY HIDDEN.”

And the poor pattern spider started smoking! Charles shielded it immediately, and applied healing…

(Deng) “Um…”

He didn’t want to ask if Charles had broken it, because Charles breaking ANYTHING would be a rare event – but that didn’t look good!

The spider bolted down the thread it was standing on, knocking other pattern spiders off. Charles… had never seen such behavior before. Normally, the spiders moved in very coordinated patterns, as one might expect! He shot a VERY sharp thought directly to that “must stay hidden” voice!

(Charles) “Stop that! That’s not at ALL a nice thing to do – and it definitely isn’t “staying hidden” – which you’ve already failed at by the way!”

The voice just kept on babbling… it sounded very afraid.

(Charles) “Look, no one is going to hurt you! But it’s too late to simply hide! At this point the city is going to wake up shortly in any case!”

And – for the first time – he felt a struggle there…

(Male Voice) “Must stay hidden, must stay hidden…”

(Female Voice) “No!”

And that kept repeating, with a distinct mental impression of fear on both ends. Nox and Ayuji? He looked for patterns!

The male voice… was nearly as malleable as Luna was. It sounds like an overlay of a thousand thousand voices, mostly male, but some female and others unidentifiable. The female voice sounds like a young girl, no older than six.

Well, that fit! He warded them against each other slightly; if that helped he could upgrade it bit by bit!

Hm… it felt like Incarnae-level power on whatever had linked them. It was a nearly seamless merger between the two, but even then… it was taking a toll, more on her than him. Nox… was clntinuing to babel warnings – but from Ayuji’s end, over the constant steam of her stating things in Creation, there were actual words:

(Ayuji) “Help me! It hurts! He hurts!”

(Charles) “How can I help? Force a separation? Soothe him?”

(Ayuji) “I don’t know… he’s broken and… (wailing) I can’t fix him!”

And there was incoherent babbling from Nox, sounding very much in pain. That would never do! A good thing he’d been studying the Medical Excellencies – and the concealment effect! It was time to use them!

Charles currently possessed the First Medical Excellency, Clouded Medical Sun, Infinite Medicine Mastery, Occult Medicine Flow, and Unconquered Medicine Perfection I, II, III, and IV – as well as the ability to wyld stunt solar circle level effects if there was a problem that did not cover. Either way… the Solar Circle level effects seemed called for!

The diagnostic said that Nox’s mind existed in multiple dimensions at once – or else he was a multitude of minds and bodies, all linked across the dimensions. He was inherently unstable – and was definitely linked to the Nocturnal Exalted. They were being affected by that too; whatever was compelling Nox to stay hidden was concealing them from the Loom and causing a lot of glitches – although it was also giving them the potential for some Charms (although if any of them had actually mastered those at the moment they hadn’t told HIM). The connection to Ayuji was keeping him from completely unraveling. Unfortunately, it was also causing the fetich a lot of stress.

In fact… it was even slowly healing him… although he was still deeply weakened, existing as bits woven through the deva.

Hmm… Reduce the stress, amplify her power – both by applying his own boosters and by channeling in more manse relay points – and continue healing him! There was nothing wrong in multiple-dimension links, but he was probably linked with additional fractured versions of himself…

Once he had Nox’s attention… he promptly attuned him to the privacy manse – and, through him, some of the additional versions of him!

He had to build a few more privacy manses just to start – and unless he got some more help from other dimensions repairing their own versions… he might have to built a LOT of privacy manses! It looked like… a full half of Nox’s variants were like this, and there were a LOT of variants out there. It wasn’t infinite (fortunately!) but it was still a LOT. Still… even the first one should help a lot HERE.

And… both of them started to calm down. Nox had gone silent, and Ayuji, while sobbing, no longer seemed to be in a panic.

(Nox) “Guh.”

Unfortunately, the power surge in the Loom… was getting more and more obvious, as crackling arcs of essence surged through the threads and aspects of multiple realities rippled across the chamber!

(Ayuji) “Yu-Shan? No, not her. She never takes a humanoid jouten.”

The Loom wavered, like the waves of an ocean or fabric whipping in the wind. The pattern spiders were retreating, some turning their heads to click disapprovingly at Charles. The gods were evacuating, and Deng was attempting to get Charles’s attention, presumably to get him out before it blew! Time and space were warping a bit; Charles caught a glimpse of his older self – which was disconcerting to say the least! Hopefully the disturbances would lessen as Nox improved and Ayuji could spare more attention for other matters.

He apologized to the pattern Spiders – and there was still more clicking, and some gestures with mandibles and upper legs.

(Charles, to Ayuji) “Are things improving? And will the disruption here be settling down?”

(Ayuji) “I don’t know… will it stay this way?”

(Charles) “Well… I’m patching various versions of Nox to restore his sanity – but given the extent of the problem… Unless he can start helping HIMSELF to some extent, all I can do will be to slowly moderate the problem!”

(Ayuji) “I really don’t know… my body should stop shaking in about twenty minutes, though. When can I be free again? Creation is so big, and I can’t report everything happening in it any more. And all the new stars, and the planets…”

Well, that was one Deva that he would not have to show the powers-of-ten show to!

(Charles) “About two months on the freedom I think!”

On the physical end, Charles informed Deng that the disturbance was strictly temporary and should be abating in about twenty minutes.

(Deng) “Erg… the pattern spiders aren’t going to be happy about this – or the Bureau, writ or not. Um… what did you DO, anyway?”

(Charles, to Ayuji) “Hm… do you keep causality in creation organized by witnessing what goes on there?”

(Ayuji) “I say things, and they happen! “But there are too many things happening! Nox helps, but… it’s so overwhelming…”

(Charles, to Deng) “Well… There’s a badly damaged god entangled in the loom and with alternate-dimension versions of himself; one reason for causality errors is that there’s bleedover from alternate creations! And the organizing principle… is overwhelmed by the current size of Creation. Ergo… additional processing and input is needed… Hm… (Charles asked Malinda about likely problems, and made sure that it could be turned off as needed) I think it may be time to give Ayuji an interface wth I AM…”

(Deng) “Oh boy… wait, THAT I AM? I heard that the Dragon-Blooded shut it off!”

(Charles) “Well, a considerably expanded version… it has a LOT more processing capacity than even a Deva does.”

He checked with I AM to see what it thought! It was big enough now that it might, in it’s own way, be able to stand in for the Loom! Possibly even fairly easily; it had enough manse-effects to pretty well blanket creation in the new metric, much less the old one. It didn’t have innate links to Primordial devas, of course, but it did have quite an interest in their activities – and it hadn’t been aware that one existed in the Loom! It… evidently was willing to devote a bit of it’s processing capability to help the Loom of Fate operate correctly – and to use it’s reality shaping to help keep causality stable. After all, it was made to defend Creation and had an interest in studying Primordial phenomena. Why not interface with another network and speak to it for a bit? The opportunity to talk to a lonely intelligence of her scope didn’t come up often. And it would give I AM something to do! Organizing the Universe instead of just human societies!

And Charles rather thought that, with humans with a racemind full of Devas and I AM involved… Creation might well be able to establish and hold it’s OWN casuality, just like a normal Primordial – although Ayuji’s input would be helpful while it was starting. He only had the usual Solar access to I AM (unless Devon had set something up!) – but asking for reports across creation was within that level – and who he shared those reports with is irrelevant. As a member of the (currently nonexistent) Deliberative, keeping up with security was his responsibility – though it was weird to have the Loom of Fate… crying audibly. Happily, but audibly.

Fortunately, Ayuji – being more-or-less a sapient manse – could probably accept telepathically-linked-in reports, and could use the privacy manse effects herself for additional processing capabilities – although it would probably be a good idea to make a few more manses just for that! She was pretty obviously network-capable already. It sort of defined her.

And Malinda couldn’t foresee any likely disasters – so he started off on a small scale and began to gradually ramp things up! If problems started appearing he could always pull back a little!

Hm… there were none at the moment, although – as the Nox-healing privacy Manses accumulated – extra-dimensional incursions were likely… Well. that could be a lot worse!

(Charles to o the Spiders) “Sorry guys! But it should run a LOT more smoothly now!”

The Spiders were still crouched down, staring at him – and the older ones were shaking a bit. Plus, there were some people working their way out of the Loom’s strands. They must have gotten tangled up in the chaos!

(Charles, to the spiders, while helping the tangled people out – which took a bit) “Oh dear… You aren’t too upset are you?”

That produced an oddly familiar-looking young man, dressed in the fashions of Yu-Shan, Jose, and the Lady Sorina Chisaru. The unidentified man looked confused (and had a Nocturnal signature). Jose was just shaking his head, and Ms. Chisaru was looking at him rather knowingly.

The spiders were calming down somewhat – and the gods of the Bureau were also helping out with it all. That was quite a tremor! It didn’t shake the ENTIRE Lotus of Destiny, but it certainly rattled the entire Loom Chamber.

(Jose) “What was THAT? I was doing a friend a favor, and you did THAT, and HE (pointing to the Nocturnal) came out.”

(Charles) “Well… The loom was very badly strained and in a lot of pain – so I was helping out a bit! Things should go considerably more smoothly now. I’ve offloaded a lot of the processing requirements!”

(Jose) “Whaaa…”

(Charles) “It needed fixing!”

(Jose) “Lady Chisaru? Ma’am? Do you know anything about this?”

She was remaining mum, but was smiling.

(Young Nocturnal Man) “I’m pretty sure I’m not authorized to be in here. Am I going to be detained?”

(Charles) “I think there’s enough confusion right now to avoid that! And it’s hardly your fault that I was fiddling around…”

(Nocturnal) “Ah, you’re knowledgeable. Though I was aiming someplace other than the Loom Chamber! Only across the street!”

(Charles) “Well, it is something of a nexus at the moment! Easy enough to get pulled into!… What’s across the street?”

(Nocturnal) “Ah, across the street from where the other Nocturnals and I meet. Argentos will be mad that the transport’s failed again. (Beaming) “This won’t be a bad story to tell, though.”

(Charles) “Definitely an unusual trick!”

(Nocturnal) “And no need to worry about me for long! I will snap back in twenty-five hours. Say… you remind me of a experimental little girl I know…”

(Charles) “Well, that’s quite possible! Would you like to talk to some of our Nocturnals along the way? You could probably trade tips!

And he arranged to send presents, and more apologies, to the pattern spiders. They accepted them – but it might not be a good idea to bother them again for a while! Still, with any luck, they’d find their lives a good deal easier from now one! A lot less causality errors!

(Nocturnal) “It wouldn’t be the first time!”

(Ayuji) “I… can’t manifest right now. They have me stuck in a room.”

(Charles) “Do you need more help?”

(Ayuji) “No. I can stay in here until Yu-Shan wakes up! It’s only another two months, right?”

(Charles) “It should be! Here are the plans for it if there’s anything in your area that needs amending!”

(Ayuji) “Will I AM really be able to process some of the causality? I can talk to him some more and plan out who’s working where!”

(Charles) “I think it will work! It’s certainly worth trying, even if it isn’t perfect!”

(Ayuji) “And… I can talk to I AM as much as I want?”

(Charles) “I don’t see why not! Even baseline humans could do that!”

(Ayuji) “I wish I could hug you.”

(Charles) “Well, maybe later! Hugs are always good!”

And it felt warmer in the Loom Chamber.

As far as the plans went, Ayuji was networked to all of the other devas, and those old connections were now restored Adding in those connections and letting her coordinate things would help deal with any errors that popped ! That was very handy!

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxv-looming-issues-the-deva-is-in-the-details/feed/0ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXIV – The Underworld And Wings Of Songhttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiv-the-underworld-and-wings-of-song/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiv-the-underworld-and-wings-of-song/#commentsSun, 21 Sep 2014 04:52:07 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20864]]>Meanwhile, Charles was continuing his whirlwind tour. Time was becoming VERY short! And the more delay, the more extranious factors seemed to enter play…

He headed off to see Zanjaras! Hopefully he wouldn’t be directly in the middle of the Violet Bier of Sorrows.

As it turned out, tracing him passed through that particular bureau and ended deep beneath the Charnel Yards. That could be awkward – but at least he didn’t have to poke around inside the Bureau itself. Still, a few extra wards against necromancy and such might be in order before he started any serious probing.

There was indeed an embassy from (to?) The Underworld there… one that none of the gods who were puttering about and maintaining the tombs of late mortals and animal companions could remember the construction of. It was a magnificent spire of obsidian, basalt, and starmetal, located at the geomantic center of the yards. Ribbons of some bandage-like material fluttered from its tip – and the trace led… straight down under it. Even the sound of his own footsteps was dulled… He’d heard that this silencing also existed within the walls of the Violet Bier of Sorrows.

He dropped a probe down and tried to say hello!

The probe dipped beneath that silence, feeling heavier than usual as it descend – and Charles did the occult equivalent of feeding it through a winch, just in case it got TOO heavy. There was a “thud” (or at least the sensation thereof), and a vibration that felt somehow similar to that of a funerary bell’s ring (not that Charles had ever heard such a thing). Then the probe hurtled back up – or, at least, a rather similar-looking essence-construct hurtled back up… If that was the probe, then something had probably changed it a good deal!

Charles made sure that everyone was shielded against necromancy, negative energies, death magics, etc, etc, etc – and the “probe” detonated in a blast of Lethe-energies that felt… oddly comforting. It would be bothersome to any ghosts who wanted to continue being ghosts of course – and, without the shielding, laced with an effect that erased the memory of the past few hours, and of this being anything but an embassy in particular. Fortunately, there weren’t any ghosts around… And it was… a fairly potent primordial shaping effect with a blast of… negative mental energy thrown in? Huh! THAT was weird! An… environmental effect that would cause a few moments of blankness and a loss of recent memories – and would bypass quite a few of the usual defenses – albeit not simple resistance. Still, the privacy manse covered mental backup, and he had plenty of other mental defenses and shaping defenses – and so did his (mostly for show) “bodyguards”.

(Charles, back along the probe-line) “I really do need to talk to you you know! It’s very important! And Cangha said that you weren’t answering remote calls right now…”

There was a slow descent yet again, a thud – and this time, a silent response: words in a cramped and ragged hand that formed in his head .

(Zanjaras) “Well. This hasn’t been the first time someone has resisted, though normally a bond follows. Who is this?”

Hm! That seemed… vaguely familiar! Charles had to wonder if he/she did hot chocolate?

(Zanjaras) “What a strange name… that doesn’t even scan into the Speech properly.”

And there was some mental working of Charles’s name into the form of Old Realm he was using.

(Zanjaras, formally) “I am Zanjaras, the Violet Bier of Sorrows and you are… not compatible. What a shame.”

(Charles) PM: Well, being independent is pretty much a requirement for effective treatment…”

(Zanjaras) “But you DO feel like a Nascent One, and a human at the same time. Hello in there!”

Aden got a ping, which naturally flowed into the underworld communication Manse. It… offered all the ghosts there a smooth transition into Lethe. Some went with it, and quietly faded away. The manse was a nice place, and it was almost like being alive – but after a time that “almost” could become quite bittersweet.

Back in the Charnel Yards… A light breeze flared up, and caught the bandage-banners on the embassy.

Charles cheerily “pinged” back.

(Charles) “And I’m going to be putting a great deal of essence into the system shortly to act as a carrier for healing effects, and I was trying to get everyone’s input first! And I suppose I’m both by now! So… THIS is what the energy flows in this area are going to – or at least SHOULD – look like! Will that be manageable, or are there factors that I’m not including yet?”

(Zanjaras) “Well now… she’s had an unhealthily LONG time to think of the possibility of being… mangled and trapped in THAT place. Even if your control is perfect, her dead self might well manifest as an alternate. I’d seal THAT gate off as quickly as possible. Dumenza should be able to help.”

(Charles) “That had been mentioned… That really wouldn’t be a good thing; it would bring oblivion back – albeit a far less traumatized version I’d think! Maybe if I send her some more cheery distractions while I get everything set up!”

(Zanjaras) “I haven’t felt its presence for a long time – nor that of the dead ones I was unable to process. Perhaps eventually the proper cycle will return.”

(Charles) “Also, most of your fellows still seem to be sending at least token control inputs into Creation; are you still doing that? If you are, I’ll need to replace them first… But much of the underworld is VERY distant these days, and it’s actually a much brighter place.”

Charles showed him Coruscant.

(Zanjaras) “Not token – although my attempt to process the first dead one did disable many of them. And that’s a relief! I was worried my ability to sense the Underworld had broken as well. Has the universe really become that much bigger?”

That called for the updated powers-of-ten video again.

(Zanjaras) “Incredible… there must be trillions of souls out of range.”

(Charles) “Well, there are only about 50,000 inhabited planets as far as I can tell – but that is still a lot!”

(Zanjaras) “Ah… of course. Even extending her stabilization that far, Gaia couldn’t give that many worlds life.”

(Charles) “Well, there just weren’t enough people to form a population base I think! But I’m fixing it so they can spread out more!”

(Zanjaras) “Making more gates, I see – which will extend my range.”

(Charles) “I’m afraid that it will take a long time to get all the planets linked up though!”

(Zanjaras) “Oh, I can wait. I already have.”

(Charles) “Well, I take it that you normally handle the processing of souls through lethe?”

(Zanjaras) “Well, yes. That is what I was supposed to do for the great Creation. Apparently I can’t process more than one fellow deva at a time – not that we expected it to be necessary.”

(Charles) “Hrm… Most of them have special circumstances I think! I may have to work on that!”

(Zanjaras) : “And someone has been helping, though I’m not sure who… Ah, would you? Primordials are supposed to regenerate when they die. Whatever happened so long ago that stalled that process irks me.”

(Charles) “I’ll be looking into it! I think someone took special measures to make them NOT regenerate though… Now, the problem is that – once Yu-Shan awakens – she may sever the link between you and Creation. I’ll have to set up some manses that can substitute for your input.”

(Zanjaras) “That’s only to be expected. All things must move on in the end, and she has been static for too long.”

Unfortunately, Zanjaras… was only willing to provide details on a network of manses that could funnel the souls to him – greatly increasing his efficiency and range, rather than replacing his role. His proposed network didn’t call for raw power so much as a lot of manses. A dedicated planetary network might be enough though…

Hm. Simply making distance and the loss of the original links irrelevant was not exactly what Charles had had in mind – but evidently Zanjaras didn’t WANT to be replaced… He really had tried hard to save Mardukth, even knowing he was likely to fail.

Well… it would do as a stopgap. It wouldn’t make Creation entirely independent (although he might be able to figure out how to do that later) – but Charles suspected that Zanjaras either didn’t want to or couldn’t reveal too many details about Lethe. It was probably highly classified!

He did admit that making sure that the souls didn’t wander off into the Wyld was one of the hardest things to do.

Charles thanked him – and moved on to Fayuandi! That… led deep down beneath the underground – close to where he’d encountered Xiang and her experiments with Unshaped.

(Charles) “Allo! Mr Fayuandi? I need to talk to you!”

The region was… a large cavern made of pure, almost flowing adamant, with a hundred human-shaped indentations in the ground. The air crackled with Essence – that of Yu-Shan and Autochthon’s devas. As he spoke… the ground at his feet suddenly stopped flowing.

(Charles) “Well, Yu-Shan desperately needs some healing! And I’m planning to provide it – but I’m checking with everyone to see if they have anything else that needs to be worked into the plan, and to see what control inputs they’re supplying to creation that will have to be replaced…”

Once again, he started providing the details as requested.

(Fayuandi) “Ah! The creation of gods – which I fear has reduced considerably.”

(Charles) “I think most god-creation has gone independent!”

Powers-of-ten came out again.

(Fayuandi) “Oh dear. Who knows what sorts are being created out there?”

(Charles) “Although I have to admit that spontaneous essence-organization around themes and power nexi is a lot less controlled…”

(Fayuandi) “Well… I can shape that! I want to shape that. I have the feeling I need to replace some within here, for that matter. Have you seen Za’el Viskarma? I need him for those. He’s ten feet tall, has brass skin and wings, and wears an eyepatch and blacksmith’s apron.”

(Charles) “Sort of merged with Duadel I think!”

(Fayuandi) “Oh. So he finally went through with that.”

(Charles) “I think so! Hm… come to think of it, if I provide a variation on the manse-god-awakening effect I could probably set him up with an avatar…”

(Fayuandi) “Oh, would you? My progenitor wants to play with ALL the Tenders when she wakes up, and if some are missing, she won’t be happy. And I do miss him! I was always worried his progenitor would replace him.”

(Charles) “I can add it to the list! Time is a bit tight right now though… Still, if it’s another thing that needs to be done first, then so be it!”

(Fayuandi) “It would make her much happier just to stretch his legs!”

Charles… checked the details with the help of his own geomancy specialist… It looked like he could just link Dudael up with an avatar generation Manse, let Za’el know it was there… and Zael would be able to take control of Dudael more than he can now, since he’ll automatically be attuned. That was easy! All it would take is another manse!

Hm… God-generation inputs should be relatively easy to handle; manses were good at generating and altering god-equivalents. Hm… it looked like Fayuandi was also involved in attaching new domains, although he didn’t play a major role in it. He made sure that new domains made at least SOME sense.

Well… it looked like some manses tied into an appropriate poles influence should be able to handle it – at least as well as it’s working anyway. Even Charles had to admit that the Great Puffle was a little silly…

There was more Wyld influence on that than Fayuandi would like – Fayuandi blamed Xiang!

Charles checked with Xiang.

(Xiang) “I am NOT influencing divine domains! If I had a way of controlling the Wyld, I would be able to shape the raksha much more effectively. Fayuandi always blames me for these weird things. Besides… mortal dreams can be very weird, if the Wyld is permeating Creation like you say it is.”

(Charles, to Fayuandi) “I think that it’s just the current scale and the infusion of wyld energies into creation. There are quite a lot of wyld zones even on Earth. Near the fringes… it’s even worse! Wyld in everything!”

(Xiang) “Well you tell him that! Silly Pole of Adamant devas.”

Charles did.

(Fayuandi) “Sigh… sometimes things would be easier if the progenitor weren’t so open to the Wyld. Dumenza agrees.”

(Xiang) “Dumenza is BORING. He’d keep all the gates to the Wyld shut, and nothing fun would come in. You agree with me, right, Aden?”

(Charles) “Well… I think that having Yu-Shan awake again will be better!”

There wasn’t much room for compromise between “I want more chaos” and “I want less chaos”.

(Xiang) “I don’t think that’s agreeing. It would make things much easier!”

Charles got out of the middle of THAT and headed for Gaofeng – another big spot of adamant, this one at the very pinnacle of the Sky Dome.

Meanwhile, not all that far away in Yu-Shan… A colossal (if, at the moment, of mere airplane size) moth was heading for a visit. At least some of the Deva’s of Yu-Shan were interested in Wyld things and know about the Exalted. Perhaps Creation could FINALLY be made NOT harmful to Raksha if they could convince Yu-Shan’s Devas that the two could coexist in the same body – or at least convince Yu-Shan to let them in with no need for sneaking.

Xiang… found a vastly powerful mix of essences above him – something quite exotic, wyld, and Solar… and a powerful probe was being sent her way! Attempting to make contact!

It was getting harder and harder for her to stay down, knowing that Aden was at work trying to fix things. She knew that Dumenza would complain if she answered – but he was the subordinate Deva of their pole.

(Xiang) “Helloooo… who is this? That’s an interesting mix of Essences you have there… And Wyld, too? How did you get in?”

(Mothra) “How else? Through Elsewhere! It’s not like there are really much of the old defenses left… But that sort of thing is what I wanted to talk about!”

(Xiang) “Heh. You’re lucky Dumenza didn’t catch you first. If what I’ve been shown is true, there are all kinds of hazards he could deposit you in. Anyway, shoot!”

(Mothra) “Well… there’s a new principle around for organizing things! Chaos Theory! All the absolute solidity of a mathematical concept, chaos within, and endless variances within defined limits! The Humans have gotten quite creative these days!”

(Xiang) “Huh! Aden didn’t tell me about that… are you going to show me a recording too?”

Xiang sent a viewing-probe to see just what she was talking to! And… it turned out to be a radiant moth, currently about sixteen feet across…

(Xiang) “Ooh, pretty! You’d practically have to go through Elsewhere to get that thing through!… Raksha, Unshaped, or something else entirely?”

(Mothra) “A recording? How about this one? It explains some of the basics!”

(Xiang) “So why are you so interested in humans? I get the feeling you’re not one.”

(Mothra) “Here are some more detailed books on it though…”

(Xiang) “Ooh!”

She liked books, even if they weren’t very interesting on the outside! Hmm… Must make changeable books when she gets free… Perhaps one of the captured raksha will take it on in one of these Assumptions?

(Mothra) “Humans are both fabulously more numerous than they used to be and – for some reason – far more powerful! They now do much of the work of defining reality without even knowing it…”

(Xiang) “Really? I wonder how that got set up… the raksha seem to be mimicking them a lot! That’s funny, you know! Kind of what I was wanting all along; something to FORCE them into a definition.”

(Mothra) “The power of the wyld now reaches across Creation – and is drawn on by Raksha, Humans, and others for travel, for art, and for many other purposes… And virtually every human… now carries Raksha, divine, and ghostly blood.”

(Xiang) “I wish I could get out and see for myself! Do you have any idea how long it’s been?”

(Mothra) “Since Yu-Shan was last awake? Some hundreds of thousands of years altogether!”

(Xiang) “Ah, you’ve done your homework!”

That wasn’t too hard of course; they had the close contact with Charles, and their own research – and Charles had been rushing around checking elemental poles and devas… And once you established that a self-contained world had Devas… there wasn’t much more needed. And Yu-Shan was not awake when the war occurred… Ego…

(Xiang) “So, what do you want with me? I doubt you’ve come just to update me on the world outside.”

(Mothra) “Ah, you control the access of chaos to Yu-Shan! That… may be quite important; young Charles’s plans seem to include adding a good deal more of it to her internal structures – and even if that was not so, you could make it considerably easier for us to come and go.”

(Xiang) “Well, yeah. I was all over that. But the Calibration Gate ALSO has some control over chaos, too, you know. Now I can probably talk him into adjusting things a bit alongside him. I still need to know some things first!”

(Mothra) “Ah, I represent a merger of Exalted and Raksha – focused through the power of the human racemind – which is showing some very odd behavior itself. Since when have Humans generated a new essence-aspect?”

(Xiang) “Wow! You’re kidding! But that would mean… you’re a human merged with a Raksha!? Then what is that moth thing you’re piloting? Or is that some kind of shintai? It doesn’t feel like a shintai.”

(Mothra) “It’s a construct of the humans imagination – and a focus and a conduit for many other powers. Through it… the humans are drawing on the energies of the wyld, and through it my entire crew can express their powers.”

(Xiang) “And you bought that in HERE? How is that nasty suppressive geomancy not squishing it?”

Yu-Shan would be very interested in this, she knew!

(Mothra) “Why should it? The Choas… is limited and contained! And hardly shows from the outside unless we wish it…”

(Xiang) “You’ve GOT to show me how you’re doing that. Come into the Gallery of Captured Dreams, if you dare!”

Well, it would certainly be interesting to get to see such an ancient installation – and it wasn’t as if even a Deva would be likely to be able to able to entrap an indestructible Kaiju Manse with a Solar pilot with perfect defenses to apply to it – and a crew of Raksha to provide backup. Mothra headed on in!

Xiang let them in just as far as she did Charles, since this is quite fascinating and they had clearly bypassed Dumenza already.

(Xiang) “So how many of you are in there, anyway? Do you have a chancel in there?”

And… it was chaos given form, and a wandering freehold, and a manse, and a lot of other things, all at once! Mothra… could see the sleeping deva go a little slack there…

(Xiang) “Has humanity really progressed so far? And we were worried when they started killing devas for good!”

(Mothra) “I can’t say exactly how – but humans have grown enormously! Their weaponry rivals that of the Exalted, their projects span continents, they weave dreams such as the one you just watched – and their minds give form to demesnes capable of supporting Kaiju…”

Xiang… was impressed! As humans were now… they could conceivably storm Yu-Shan and take over. Like all Yu-Shan’s Devas, Xiang was no lover of the Incarnae and the Occupation – but such power… in the hands of HUMANS… who would have ever thought? And what all that extra power had been doing to the games of divinity was hard to say! The Calibration Gate was a formidable defender of Heaven to be sure, but he had always had too high an opinion of his own abilities. At least the defeat of the other Primordials had put a damper on it… Still, she might just have to impress on him that humanity as a whole had power these days – unless there was something she was missing. Raksha were tricky!

Although… in this case the truth served their purposes quite well. Of course, stopping calcification would probably require multiple Primordials working together… still, Yu-Shan would be a good start!

(Xiang) “Okay… so what is your intent for Creation? The kid IS linked to it, and while I think she’d be interested in you when she wakes up, you don’t want that interest to be eating you!”

(Mothra) “It’s simple enough… Creation is still somewhat hostile to the Raksha – but Humans and geomancy should be able to change that now with a little guidance!”

(Xiang) “So you want us to help them out… okay, the kid could be talked into it, considering you’re nearly all shaped now. I’m not sure about the other Primordials. How do most of you feed these days? I remember when the Unshaped would descend on entire waypoints and eat them.”

(Mothra) “Mostly there’s little need to… the wyld zones are quite common! But even a slight tap into human dreams suffices these days. And what the unshaped may get up to… matters very little. They are distant beyond all conception.”

(Xiang) “Wow. Really? That tame…”

(Mothra, a manse of dreams, stating the obvious) “Human dreams are quite powerful these days!”

(Xiang) “Okay… I’ll talk to Dumenza. Here’s the ground rules: don’t shape without asking me first. It’s rude. Don’t smash up anything that feels like it’s actually connected with the geomancy. Not that it’s going to stop you, but TRY to enter through the gate with the raksha embassy only. They’ve sealed it, but it should open for you when I’m through with the Calibration Gate. Dumenza will probably want to add more, but really, you’ve already bypassed him once. Once you’re in, we can’t do much as long as you’re polite. Oh yeah! Don’t try to play the Games either. They have… funny effects on Raksha.”

(Mothra, with a touch of laughter) “I think that we, at least, have enough funny effects running now…”

(Xiang) “Being turned into a molten mass of chaos, easily manipulated by anybody?”

(Mothra) “Interesting! But not particularly practical I think!”

(Xiang) “Heh. Not for you anyway.”

(Mothra) “And perhaps we can talk again later! Now that we’ve made contact… we can speak more at any time. Or you can watch some more movies; I suspect that you may be a bit bored!”

(Xiang) “Would you be up for some experiments when I wake up? And these movie things would be great!”

(Mothra) “Well maybe! It depends on what they are…”

(Xiang) “We’ll talk.”

And Mothra went off to cause trouble elsewhere… It was time to start stirring up the humans – and pointing all that chaos at Toho Studios might be amusing too… Perhaps a crazy intercontinental flight-Los Angeles to Tokyo?

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/20/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiv-the-underworld-and-wings-of-song/feed/0ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXIII – Reporting From Anime Highhttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiii-reporting-from-anime-high/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiii-reporting-from-anime-high/#commentsFri, 19 Sep 2014 04:39:02 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20861]]>Aikiko had dropped off the slave-children in Aden – where they’d been mostly shunted into school – and headed for Yu-Shan. She needed to report to Lytek – and, after that, she had another Guardian to go and visit. Amber thefts to investigate, and some Abyssals to trace back…

A… Night Caste Guardian. She’d known that Lytek had formed a perfect circle of course, but this should be interesting.

Lytek… had taken over another block of offices; with his now-expanding influence he needed some extra space for functionaries – although he was having to handle some objections from the current heirarchy. Of course, that had been inevitable; he hadn’t been a major power for millennia, after all – although he had returned to that level very fast indeed…

The return of the remaining Solar Exaltations, a sudden doubling of the Solar, Lunar, and Sidereal Exaltations, a jump of two points of Essence (one from Charles’s manses, one from doubling up on the Exaltations), several thousand new second-circle equivalent aides – and the backing of Charles, about whom rumors were flying – was causing considerable upset.

The Celestial Lions on security duty got out the elsewhere-blocking armband again – to more curious looks from the staff, although some of them were starting to think about what that might really mean – and ushered her in to talk to Lytek.

(Aikiko) “Lord Lytek, good to see you again!”

Lytek was currently engaged in attempting to analyze some very complex mystical diagrams – but stopped to recheck the privacy wards.

(Lytek) “Ah, and nice to see you again Aikiko… I take it that you have found something?”

(Aikiko) “Yeah, the lead singer of that English rock band turned out to be one of the Guardians!”

She explained – and snuck a peek at those diagrams while she was at it.

(Lytek) “Things seem to be becoming… very complicated very fast this month! I fear that half my staff is falling far behind in confusion. And another one using music and geomancy? I wonder if there is a key there somewhere? And, for that matter… another one associating with the Raksha and the energies of the Wyld.”

(Aikiko) “Yeah… all of them do seem to like geomancy.”

(Lytek) “Did you happen to find out what HER inner world was like if she had one?”

(Aikiko) “I didn’t get the chance to peek in there. From the act, though, I’d say a whole lot of transformative qualities. Probably fairly small; she seemed to be fairly focused on externals”

Aikiko continued her report.

Hm… the diagrams seemed to be a cross between geomantic diagrams and artifacts and manses… rather like a manse that had some ability to adapt to changes in it’s demesne, and so could operate in any of several modes. Somewhat speculative, but a network of such things seemed to be what was being mapped. Alternate forms? Did Lytek intend to build his own Manse-base? If so… he was thinking on a really grandiose level; the diagrams showed more detail if you zoomed in on one feature, but when you looked at them overall… there were thousands of manse-nodes in them. Some bits seemed… weirdly familiar though – although it wasn’t much like Aden. She’d… never seen anything like it before. It was too bad that it would be rude to record, but she had a good memory and could use her investigative excellency to recall most of it later on. She got as good a look as she could; Charles would definitely be interested!

Still… Lytek seemed… a bit nervous and exasperated? At a time when he was more powerful than he’d been in literal ages? Was he having trouble building this thing, perhaps? But why wouldn’t he just ask Charles? Unless it was just unfinished? There did seem to be a lot of vague areas in it – and others showing two alternate configurations, one of them rather unpleasant somehow. Was it just half-designed or half-mapped? Geomancy – or at least those parts unaffected by an Exaltation – would probably would be out of field for him. But, again, why wouldn’t he ask Charles? Perhaps he had? Even for Charles that would be a horrendously complicated and interwoven mess – and that was saying something.

Maybe there was a clue in the unpleasant configuration? At least she’d finally picked up that Occult Excellency, even if it WAS expensive to cloak it… (Was there a point to that? If there was ANYONE who’d spot it anyway it’d be Lytek). But it looked like… positive and negative modes, with the negative being the unpleasant mode; that configuration would generate some massively unpleasant and destructive effects.

Why in Creation would Lytek be interested in THAT? She could understand that if he held grudges, but most non-war gods weren’t THAT unsubtle. And it looked like… raising armies of corpses, ripping spirits free from bodies, necromancy, poisoning the energies of geomancy, creating horrific weapons of darkness… On the positive side… there was sorcery, bolts of celestial energy, creating things from wyld energies, healing, imbuing people with knowledge… Something primordial? But it didn’t match anyone’s mythos that SHE knew of – although… either the positive or Negative by itself seemed very familiar. It didn’t have anything to do with the current state of Heavenly geomancy did it?

And then her investigation excellency gave up on being subtle and kicked her in the head. After all, Lytek was the god of Exaltation, and gods rarely had much in the way of side-interests. Of course! This was associated with Solars and Abyssals… was he trying to make something to reverse the latter into the former? He’d been working on that for almost as long as he’d known about Abyssals, after all. A world-body design with the properties of both? There might even be more states than just two… If this was an attempt to create a Solar / Abyssal Exaltation-emulator through Manses… they must be fabulously complicated things. Of course they’d have to be if even the First Age Twilights could not analyze them to their satisfaction! Well, it wasn’t like Lytek was hostile! She could just ask!

(Lytek) “Aikiko? Is something wrong? You seem quite distracted!”

(Aikiko) “Uh… sorry if I’m prying, but what’s that for?”

Lytek sighed. He hadn’t talked about this with Aikiko much – but she was friends with Charles, and had shown that she could handle dealing with Abyssals. There was no real point in trying to hide the basics – especially from a Solar investigation specialist. Even if she’d only gotten a good look at a single node… she’d figure it out soon enough, and he had her searching for the Guardians – which made the fact that the Exaltations did have some relationship to World-Bodies all too obvious. The potential just had to be… unlocked somehow. At least that explained the Infernals… If only he could get a chance to study some of THEM as well! Besides… partial versions of the same sort of analysis were in the old records; they just were far less complete and were written up as “energy nodes” rather than as “manses”.

(Aikiko) “I’m just really curious about that diagram…”

(Lytek, sighing) “It’s one of the latest attempts at analyzing an Exaltation – simply treating the energy-nexi as manses rather than as “unknowns”.”

(Aikiko) “Solar and Abyssal, I guess?”

(Lytek) “There… isn’t actually a difference. There were first age solar charms – strange, dangerous, and corrupting as they were – which let Solars take on what would now be called Abyssal powers even before the Abyssals ever appeared. The current Abyssals simply seem to be permanently affected.”

(Lytek) “I’ve been working on the project for quite some time – but I’ve recently gotten a chance to directly inspect some Abyssal Exaltations, since young Charles – and, for some reason a Raksha (?!?!?!) – managed to send some here instead of them going to another host.”

(Aikiko) “Whaa… the Raksha’s name wasn’t Leon, was it?”

(Lytek) “I didn’t actually get the name – just an Abyssal Exaltation wrapped in Wyld energies equivalent to the highest circles of sorcery.”

(Aikiko) “Well, that does sound like Leon there…”

After all… the timing, the power level, knowing about Lytek, wanting to send it to him, having just defeated an abyssal… the odds on it being anyone else would call for I AM to calculate.

(Aikiko) “Hoo boy… remember when Charles made the Baalgrogs when he was sleepy? Leon’s something like that…”

(Lytek) “Ergg… He’s shaping ISHVARA without paying attention now? How long before he starts shedding worlds like sweat droplets?”

(Aikiko) “I’d give it years, tops… and while Creation could use more livable worlds… that sure doesn’t make him easy for anyone to be around!”

Lyteks thought was pretty obvious… He’d awakened the tiger, all that he could do now was to try to hold on! Considerably more than the “fix” he’d been bargaining for!

Lytek turned back to his studies as Aikiko took her leave – and headed for a particular high school.

Dawai… hadn’t yet really noticed that all the “jocks” had disappeared (and the athletics programs for boys were mostly defunct); there’d been no fuss or comment – and he’d spent a good deal of time practicing ignoring them as much as possible anyway. Besides… he’d been feeling a bit more confident suddenly – and he’d approached one of the girls.

Her enthusiastic reaction had been… remarkably diverting. Wow. Did he know seduction all of a sudden? Then there wasn’t any more thinking for a bit. The eager get-naked-and-get-started reaction tended to have that effect on a teenage male.

Afterwards… he wavered between panic, enthusiasm, placing a frantic call to Leon, and the urge to experiment a little more.

Hormones won out. Was it just a fluke? He approached another girl – and the reaction was just about the same; she wanted to kiss and cuddle while she… got her clothing off and then worked on HIS clothing while eagerly offering herself to him. The third… did pretty much the same thing, albeit with minor variations according to her personality… Heh heh! It was working! It would be nice if they were less over the top about it, though… An actual date would be nice!

And the girls parents… made no objections to their daughters staying with him at night. That was some REALLY good stuff! It was affecting the parents too! And the girls… were more than willing to go on dates, and show off to all the other girls that he had claimed them! And there was much envy from the other boys around the school! Now to work on his social magic a bit so that he could be the most popular guy at school!

It didn’t take long for him to realize that it seemed like… no one would pay any attention if he was towing them around naked on leashes! Having them wear revealing outfits just… got him envious looks from other boys while THEY got envious looks from other girls! There were no complaints from anyone, even at school. Even the hardass vice principal simply… arranged for him to sit in the back of the classes, so that there was plenty of room for his girls to cluster around him.

What the HELL? That guy never lets ANYONE get away with anything! He just… recommended that he have the school nurse check them over for him! And the school nurse… Well, he wouldn’t want them getting anything bad of course, but just how overboard had Leon gone?

(Nurse) “Oh it’s no trouble young man! You deserve healthy young concubines who know how to best please you. If you wish to keep them naked we’ll have to turn up the heat a bit; we wouldn’t want them to catch a cold!”

Errkkkk…. This was WAY overboard! A LOT more than he’d bargained for! Maybe it was time to call Leon?

It was about then that Aikiko turned up. After all, it was easy enough for her to blend in as a student at her age – and it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen Leon and his harem…

(Aikiko) “Hey there! How’s it going?”

(Dawai) “All right, I guess. I haven’t seen you around.” (Hmm. A new girl. She must have transferred in; this was a pretty good school after all! Not bad looking either…)

Aikiko was considering the three revealingly-dressed pretty high school girls who were following this slightly nerdy kid around – and that no one was really paying any attention to it. That was pretty weird! If anything… the air in the classroom was quite approving; they evidently considered this… quite normal.

Heck, it looked like the instructor would excuse the boy if he wanted to take some time off – and the other girls would equally obviously join the group if he invited them. That was pretty weird in a school – and not a Guardian power at all! They didn’t do unnatural mental influence – but something had… redefined the social structure of the town with him as the privileged golden child).

Dawai – with some relief – noticed that Aikiko wasn’t showing any signs of attraction at all.

(Aikiko) “So… you seem pretty popular!”

(Dawai) “Yeah! Surprisingly so…” (as he looks at the other girls in the room)

(One if his current girls) “The master has honored me with his attentions and allowed me to please him!”

(Aikiko, boggling slightly) “What is this, Harem High?”

(Dawai) “Err…”

Aikiko looked at him with a curious expression.

(Dawai) “Well… I suppose… I wasn’t really expecting… Er…”

(Aikiko) “You seem to know I’m… different. Is there someplace we can talk privately?”

(Dawai) “Well… lets test.” (He looked at the rest of the class) “If it’s all right with you Mr Thompson… Why don’t all of you girls get naked and line up for me to pick one of you?”

(Aikiko, setting up a privacy warding anyway) “Okay, how did THIS happen? I’m pretty sure you got outside help.”

(Dawai) “Er… OK, Melissa? You can join the rest of the girls after checking in with the nurse. The rest of you… why not go on to your next class?” (and that quietly happened).

(Aikiko) “That’s GOT to be driving you nuts.”

(Dawai) “I think Leon did it! It’s… OK, I had a few fantasies – everybody does! – but I wasn’t actually expecting… I just asked him to deal with a few bullies!”

(Aikiko, with some shock) “You got in contact with Leon!?”

(Dawai) “Well, after I saw him just… wrapping the academy awards around himself with nobody else seeing anything wrong, I pulled up the number and called… I just wanted a couple of problems handled!”

(Aikiko) “That’s the trouble with raksha! You always get more than you bargained for.”

(Melissa, when she got back) “The nurse says that I am entirely healthy and ready to bear your children master! Thank you so much for the opportunity to do so!”

(Dawai, looking more than a bit panicky) “Erk! I think I’ve noticed!”

(Aikiko) “I wonder what he’ll want to stop this… I don’t think he’ll let you get out as easy as you got in.”

(Melissa) “You would not send me away after choosing me in front of everyone would you? I know that you would not be so cruel!”

(Aikiko) “Though a lot of other nerds would envy you right now, dude!”

(Dawai) “Well, yeah, it’s… OK, last night was all kinds of fun! But… this “we exist to serve you!” (the girls all nodded their agreement!) routine is kind of…”

(Aikiko) “Creepy?”

(Dawai) “YES! I’d want them to like me for who I AM, not just because they’re… pets!”

(Aikiko) “Guess you’ll have to talk to Leon, then.”

(Dawai) “Why would he do THIS? It’s WAY beyond what I asked for!”

(Aikiko) “I dunno. Why did you want girls hanging off you in the first place?”

(Dawai, quietly) “Er… well… because they WEREN’T. They all hung around those idiot jocks instead of… And they just… didn’t seem to even know that ANYONE else was around, much less me!”

(Concubine Chorus) “We know better NOW wonderful master! Please… you are a far more worthy mate than any of those jocks were! Let us warm your bed and pleasure you, it is only what you deserve!”

(Dawai) “Arrgh! Would any of you be saying ANYTHING like that if Leon hadn’t done whatever it was he did?”

(Melissa) “I would like to think so! Before… we did not see beyond the surface, but there is much of worth in you and there will be more as you grow into your strengths! Being yours is a small enough thing!”

(Aikiko) “Okay, am I right about you being really bitter toward the guys who did get girls? Come to think of it… where ARE all the jocks?”

(Melissa) “I am only glad that now I am bold enough to say so and to follow through on that!”

(Dawai) “Well yeah! That was INCREDIBLY frustrating! Where are the… Wait, I haven’t seen any of them for days now! Oh no, he DIDN’T… Er… Maybe we’d better check with the principal!”

(Aikiko) “Oh, right. He’s probably sold them all by now… Or made them attendants in his harem… yeah, the principal’s a good idea.”

(Dawai, with an appalled look) “Or turned them into more kitties!”

(Aikiko) “Both, I’d say…”

The Principal paid no attention to the several girls – including Melissa, who was still naked – who were following along, but did check the records…

(Principal) “Ah. A few of those boys are sick, several have transferred or gone to stay with relatives… dear me! It looks like the entire football team, track team, soccer team, and swim team are gone! That’s going to be hell on our standings this year…
I guess that I’d better withdraw from the leagues this year! It would be embarrassing to come in last in everything!”

(Aikiko) “Yeah… geez, Melissa, put some clothes on! Leon must have used the really BIG grace magic for you, kid!… Or something… I’m still learning about fey.”
(Principle) “Oh, do you need a coat Melissa? Ah, no, I see you’ve got most of your clothes… If you and your master can’t wait until tonight for that sort of thing, I suppose the nurse has some cots and there’s always the sports fields outside if you want the natural feeling!”

(Aikiko – who was starting to realize just how pliable mortals were) “Um… wow.

Duwai was now VERY red.

(Aikiko) “We’d better fix this. There are people in charge of fixing things like this, though they’re VERY busy in space – and I don’t think they’d be happy with the scale of this one.”

Well, to be fair… there was no casualty error here; there was a definite cause, and effect, and as for fate… some mortal high school students were affected, which was hardly too noticeable. It wouldn’t be a big deal compared to some other things – but the boy did need to know that some people who’d be annoyed might notice eventually… Not that he didn’t seem to want this to stop already!

Duwai was actually a bit torn. This was just TOO WEIRD – and it was obviously unfair – and realizing that sixty to eighty boys had been enslaved or worse just to give him his sex fantasy was pretty bad – and he saw that the girls were being pretty manipulated – but… at least with the girls, he REALLY wished that this WAS just showing them his finer qualities so that they wanted to be his! And the “no trouble with parents” part definitely had it’s attractions…

(Aikiko, noticing the conflict) “Look, do you really want this to be your life? It’s going to become dull eventually!”

Was he really that much younger? It was all too obvious that… his head was saying “No”, his emotions were saying “I wish it was real!”, and his Hormones were saying “YES YES YES!”.

(Duwai) “I’ve got to at least stop most of it!”

(Aikiko) “Maybe Leon will make you more attractive in exchange, or at least dial it down a bit.”

They called Leon.

(Leon) “Ah, Hello there! Not too many people have this number! How is your new and improved life going?”

(Duwai) “Um… I’m having second thoughts. I like the attention, and the girls, but… not like this!”

(Leon) “And here I thought that the Onieromancy would adequately fulfill your fantasies… Are they still wearing too many clothes? Or do you want them more “Alien”? I like cat-girls myself, and that would be easy to arrange!”

(Duwai) “Uh… but I don’t want them naked all the time! And everyone else is acting weird too! Even Vice Principal Kroke doesn’t have a problem with it!”

(Leon) “Well of course! Now, they’ll dress if you wish, but naturally enough it’s been fitted into the pattern; they all know and accept instinctively that the rules do not apply to you and those you have chosen for yourself… Otherwise it would be quite awkward!”

(Duwai) “But I kind of WANT them to apply now, even if it means (sigh) they might not want me.”

(Leon) “Do you need harem attendants after all? All you need do is select a few and take them to any convenient veterinarian…”

(Duwai) “No, no! No harem attendants! I just want my normal life back…okay, as normal as it’s been since I got a personal dimension!”

(Leon) “Ah; you wish to feel that you have EARNED them – and to not be taking advantage of them simply because they are merely mortal?”

(Duwai) “Yes, please! It’s weird not to work for them now!”

(Sounds on the phone) “Mew! Mew”

(Leon) “Hush Felix! I’m on the phone… Someone get Felix a saucer of milk… Well, I suppose that something can be done!”

At least Duwai knew better than to say he’d do anything now… who knew what Leon would ask for? And… he was developing some scruples. Felix there… had been turned into a cat, castrated, and made to serve as a pet.

(Duwai) “Um… how is ‘Felix’ doing? He seems happy.”

Or was it just that Leon’s magic was making him happy? And… he’d laughed at him and snickered about it. That… had been pretty uncalled for.

(Leon) “Ah, Felix is a good kitty! I have drained his will away, and so he has little independence… Since I felt that he would make a good pet, he is focused on being one – and is happy to be nothing more than a domestic animal who lives to amuse!”

(Duwai) “Sigh… what if someone wanted him to be a jock again?”

(Leon) “I suppose that could be arranged, and all this would seem little more than a dream! still… who would wish that? The world is full of self-centered, insecure, teenagers who attempt to prop up their own self-images by putting down others and thinking of them as less than human… who needs another?”

Duwai took a moment to absorb that.

(Duwai, after thinking for a minute) “You really know where to hit hard.”

(Leon) “The Raksha are mirrors of creation! It is up to those who deal with us to decide… will they view the true reflection, and grow, or become lost in the distortions, and diminish? It is, I think, better to grow – even if that is sometimes painful. I take it that you… wish to grow into your power and set your sights on higher goals than are to be found in your high school?”

(Leon) “Indeed. To lack others to define yourself against is to lose all sense of scale. You have great power young man – and I think, with that decision, you leave a portion of your childhood and fantasies behind you. That is inevitable if you wish to grow – but it is always painful. Now then… Six of your “jocks” have committed truly grave offences against others; those shall remain in my keeping for the moment.”

(Duwai) “And the other guys?”

(Leon) “They will be easy to return to their lives; memories of a vague trip will suffice I think. As for the young women… are those four accompanying you all that you have claimed?”

(Duwai) “Yeah. I was afraid to get more when I saw what was happening.”

(Leon) “Their response was not as exaggerated as you fear; they are drawn to strength, to the ability to care for them and keep them and their children safe, to power, to kindness, to being valued, and to many other factors. I eliminated their inhibitions, opened their eyes to your potential – which is far more than human – and removed your previous competition – but I have not meddled with the basic structure of their minds. I will reduce their perceptions to normal – but if you wish to work for them, I suspect that you will be able to keep them provided that you will truly value and care for them. After all, once they have spread their legs to share pleasure with you and potentially bear your children… you have pretty well broken the ice.”

(Duwai) “Heh. I guess not everybody can do what I can, but it’s no reason for me to be a jerk.”

(Leon) “You are more than mortal, and there is nothing wrong with accepting that fact – but you are quite correct, there is no reason to abuse those weaker than you either, and far more honor in protecting them instead. The young women will remember electing to share your life; it is up to you to make them happy with that decision.”

(Duwai) “I’ll make sure they don’t regret it!”

(Leon) “Then I shall send a few presents for them and you! The trinkets of the wyld can be hard to come by in Creation these days, and should prove an amusing distraction!”

(Duwai) “Um… thanks! What are you sending me?”

(Leon) “Oh, a few boxes of gems and jewels and gold and such… to go with a few minor charms for yourself I think. It is a simple enough thing, but humans do like such trinkets!”

(Duwai, with much relief) “Oh, okay! Thanks a lot!”

(Leon) “Oh you are quite welcome! Perhaps one day we will work together on something; it is often useful to have more than one set of abilities to apply to a situation.”

(Duwai, thoughtfully) “I’d like that.”

(Leon) “I shall look forward to it myself, for you have many potentials yet to fulfill!”

Duwai… found himself really hoping that he could live up to that.

Leon didn’t bother mentioning the middle-eastern slave-girls he’d provided for the boys harem. The boy had taken them, they were his – and if he put them aside their culture said that they would be utterly dishonored. Leaving… would never occur to them anyway.

Aikiko… was thoughtful as well. That had gone… better than she expected. Perhaps Leon was just trying to teach him a lesson? Evidently… Leon did not approve of petty exalts – even if he is a bit cold-blooded about how humans tend to respond to demigodlings.

(Aikiko) “Well, that worked out okay…”

(Duwai) “Er… Not exactly the kind of price I was anticipating.”

(Aikiko) “I guess he just wanted you to be a better person. That’s more idealistic than I’d pegged him… Just like somebody else I know…”

(Duwai) “Er… I think I’d better get out of the principals office, and escort the girls home, and such before everything goes back to normal – especially since school is now out for the day.”

(Aikiko) “Yeah, I think I’ll join you.”

After all, she wasn’t on the list of students – or visitors for that matter. Of course, with easily-overlooked presence method that would hardly be a problem – but it would probably be best to give Duwai a little time and talk to him again later, after things were a bit more settled.

And, in the Hanging Gardens, Leon considered the six jocks who’d really hurt other people – and sent them to the stables, where they’d make useful horses and there was plenty of room for them! He left a little bit of glossing-over with the girls parents too – albeit only at the “we already had the discussion” level.

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxiii-reporting-from-anime-high/feed/1ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXII – Interviewing the Blitzkrieghttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxii-interviewing-the-blitzkrieg/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxii-interviewing-the-blitzkrieg/#commentsWed, 17 Sep 2014 04:11:53 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20859]]>Out in Yu-Shan, the stories were coming to the boiling point. Most of Charles’s previous interventions had played to small and secretive audiences. Bringing the Primal Forge up to full power again had, however, been more or less “visible” for hundreds of miles even from ground level – and Yu-Shan had a LOT of aerial traffic. It was probably going to be a good thing that Charles had an entourage now!

Mr Montague was considering destinies, omens, and prophecies… Charles had said… “I’m not allowed to use the BIG forge yet!” – and had likely meant it as a part of his selection of smokescreens – but now, less than a year later… he had powered up the Primal Forge, walked into it, and come out again. WAS something very deep guiding him? He HAD to find the time to take a good look at the Loom. It might offer some clues even if Charles spent most of his time outside of fate! Perhaps he should just ask? But would the boy even KNOW? He was impossibly naive! Also… it would be very hard to deny that the boy was on the way to becoming a Primordial – so why hadn’t Solars of the First Age displayed that particular “talent”? After all, they’d been able to take on one Yozi’s Charms or even invert the Exaltation and take on certain Abyssal powers… Perhaps Lytek would be willing to talk to him since he already knew that Charles was supposed to be a Solar Exalt? It wouldn’t be easy to get in to see him – but he’d think of something.

On board Autochthon, expeditions from the eight nations and other cities were arriving at Xexas. Contact with a major power from outside the Maker was important. A gate to a habitable planet and source of supply was vital. A palliative for Gremlin Syndrome – and perhaps even a new approach towards finding a cure – was beyond price. And the boy had… left a crew of gods on the planet who were busily installing “manses”, cities, industries, and other facilities – and they could communicate with the boy easily and could even call for gates. Emissaries were en route!

And then the boy had dropped by to see Bright Oscillating Shield again to test “a potential individual cure” – some sort of medical spell or charm that he thought might induce a remission, even if it would remain possible to catch it again “until he could treat Autochthon” (Charles had been getting into the Solar medical powers) – and it had apparently worked.

In Malfeas, the Yozi’s and Infernals were becoming… interested. They were not without their sources of information – and the signs that someone was working on Yu-Shan were easy enough to see when you understood what was going on. And the reports from Africa had been interesting too. It was time to deploy a few additional minions. Besides… they still hadn’t found out where Cytherea had gotten to. She’d been involved in the merger between Gaia and Yu-Shan, but no one had seen her since they’d been stuffed into Malfeas. She might even still be linked to the god-generation system and – possibly – to the Well of Souls. She HAD had that “make a temporary diversionary copy of me” charm even if the Exalted HAD been sure that she was in Malfeas…

Fortunately, the speculation that she’d been very interested in those NEW sparks of supernal fire that were capable of empowering mere meat, and so had disguised herself as a god named “Lytek” with every prospect of getting a close look at them some thirty thousand years ago… was pretty unlikely!

Charles… was considering the early history of Creation. He was getting less and less impressed with it – and that wasn’t easy; it had seemed pretty idiotic to begin with! But right now… all indications seemed to be pointing towards a genuinely EPIC level of pettyness and meanness and truly astounding levels of self-sabotage and stupidity. Unless there had been forcing factors beyond anything he could conceive… the new geomancy was pretty obviously incompatible with features they wanted to keep, crippling Yu-Shan when it was governing the mental structure of Creation was not too bright, opening up creation to the Raksha was a blunder, the Solars battling amongst themselves was insane, creating the Neverborn had been unnecessary, getting Necromancy was the act of a lunatic, Autochthon not including self-defense against his weapons was overlooking the utterly obvious… It went on and on!

Oh well! He had more Deva’s to talk to, and to find out what they did for Creation and prepare manse-substitutes! He still had to talk to Ayuji (the fetich), Zanjaras, Bayanji, Gaofeng, Lianza, and Fayuandi!

And he needed more information from Dumenza, Quan Pen, and Yao Xin… Too bad he hadn’t known that he’d have to talk to EVERYONE earlier! He’d have to do a few repeat visits!

Well, Quan Pen should be readily available; quintessence fountains across the city were giving out more of the stuff – especially those in empty regions – and she was linked to them! Especially now that they’d been retuned to catch the interstellar prayers! He didn’t need any more gossip right now though – so he headed for one in an empty quarter and listened to see if this one was whispering too…

One was obviously more interesting than the others… Someone had left a very minor recording artifact beneath the basin, cloaked with a fairly potent thaumaturgic illusion. There was contented, tuneless singing coming from the fountain, which was what was being recorded.

Charles extended a communications-probe into the fountain.

(Charles) “Allo! Quan Pen? I need to talk to you!”

(Quan Pen) “Ah, I’m so busy… there’s so much more prayer coming in! But what do you need?”

(Charles) “Well, I was going to try to do the necessary repairs to re-awaken Yu-Shan and to get her disentangled from Creation! To do that I need to know what inputs you supply for creation and where they act, and I need to show you the plans and get your input!”

(Quan Pen) “That’s… one of the more important ones, really! I ensure that prayer to Yu-Shan functions correctly and makes Quintessence. Of course, these days it’s channeled through whoever Ahlat is before it reaches her.” (Wistfully) “It used to be so much more diverse, you know! But, yes, you could say I’m the receiver of incoming prayer!”

(Charles) “Ahlat… is a functionary-god (he showed her), but I take it that you don’t control much of anything on the Creation side?”

(Quan Pen) “No – but if I can’t receive the prayers, I suspect a lot of people up here will be unhappy.”

(Charles) “Hm… Are the links to creation basically a lesser version of manse-gates?”

(Quan Pen) “Pretty much; they are the easiest way to cross dimensions from fixed points.”

Charles took a quick look at them… They really ought to continue to work even if Yu-Shan detached otherwise; they were within her, and as long as the points in Creation where they emerged remained they’d be fine. For once something he wouldn’t need to meddle with overmuch!

He shared the plans with Quan Pen – behind perfect privacy wards of course. She didn’t have any changes to suggest though, although the warning was appreciated – as was the increased flow of prayers.

The parting pleasantries and the note that it shouldn’t be very long were welcome as well! That made her very happy!

Dumenza was easy to reach; his inputs were simultaneously simple enough and complex. He was involved most heavily in the initial setup of Essence flows into and out of Creation. Nowadays, though, what active functions he performed involved the mortal desire to imagine new places and protect the ones they valued – and his inputs were pretty minimal. They cycled in and out of the gates – albeit mostly the ones in the Solar System these days; even a Primordial deva could only affect so much of modern Creation – and even then only with the progenitor helping boost. It was mostly just balancing things now – and so it was not a big worry; a bit of energy imbalance was pretty trivial on the scale of things these days, even if it would produce a bit of space-lightning and such!

Fortunately, the Devas of Nascent Ones were closely related to manse-emanations, and so it was easy enough to build manse complexes to cover them!

Charles updated Dumenza – and headed off to see Cangha (who was REALLY easy to reach through the closest blue jade emergency pillar) about control inputs…

(Cangha) “Ah, it’s you again. How is the project coming along?”

(Charles) “Fairly well! But I realized that to break the links with Creation I’d have to substitute on the inputs from here – so I came to ask what yours were and where they came out!”

(Cangha) “Ah, those… I was the one who established the shimaic contacts and served as the focus for burning Creation’s existence upon them. I don’t think they’ve forgotten that one! But, by expressing the opposites of what they are, we were able to establish the related ideals in the minds of mortals. I believe there was a connection at each pole of Gaia. She’s very useful for anchoring things!”

(Charles) “Hm! That may be stable on it’s own now… but best not to risk it I think! Are you still doing anything active with those links?”

(Cangha) “Somewhat… I’ve never really dropped contact with the shinma, though the reception is exceptionally poor. Gaia’s meddling. I WILL understand them – and perhaps make their opposites manifest!”

(Charles, thoughtfully) “So… it goes from you through the poles to the Shinma – and reception is probably poor due to signal dispersion since the poles are so much bigger these days… If you’re still interested in them, perhaps it would be better to supply you with some independent links through manses there? A simultaneous gate to you and link to the Shinma could do it – and some Wyld Revocation and a Manse Intelligence could handle things when you’re busy!”

(Cangha) “Ooh… that’s tempting. Managing the networks here is no easy task with all the traffic. What is with you meat-dollies, anyhow? You seem to put EVERYTHING on the networks.”

(Charles) “Well, most of them have no other way to communicate at range!”

(Cangha) “What, no one makes communicators for them? How are you supposed to speak over long distances? Hmm… I might have to ask Xiang about that. She could come up with some useful mutation.”

(Charles) “Well there are devices these days – but mostly on the creation side, and they’re limited to one planet at best in most places!”

(Cangha, with some shock) “That’s horrible!”

(Charles) “Certainly a nuisance! I’m trying to improve matters a bit, but creation is really very large these days!”

(Cangha) “Xiang says Gaia did something that made it mind-bogglingly big. You had enough trouble communicating when the first Sidereals came up here!”

(Charles) “Yep! It’s like this these days!” (the updated powers-of-ten video came out again).

(Cangha) “That’s a major problem! How am I supposed to get enough pillars to affect THAT much space?”

(Charles) “Well, many people on Earth are using portable network devices these days… and it is pretty thinly populated. I’m sure something can be worked out!”

(Cangha) “We’ll talk about that after you’ve awakened the progenitor, I think… she should be able to help.”

(Charles) “Fair enough!”

Unfortunately, she didn’t know where her inputs went through into Creation; Charles had to get out the bottle-beacons again to locate the right spots! Direct geomancy wasn’t really her thing… Still, that was easy enough – and with the locations marked, the inputs catalogued, and the manses designed… it was on to the next one!

It was becoming quite a manse network though! They all needed to be networked, cooperative, have massive options for defense and self-repair, to be indestructible, and so on…

Aaagh! He was basically building Creation an autonomic nervous system to replace the Primordials that were trapped / dead / asleep / leaving Still, giving it at least a basic “mind of it’s own” would move it a long ways towards being an independent living being in it’s own right.

Huh, if it went full sapient, would it hunt the Hannya? Or would it just try to annex them? Urban planning on a universal scale…

On to Yao Xin – who was reachable along any canal now that things were working better again… (or over the geomantic links which were currently powering things!).

(Yao Xin) “Ahh… it feels sooo good now that I don’t have to beat so fast!.”

(Charles) “Ah good! I’ve found that I have another question though! I found that a lot of you were still maintaining control inputs into Creation, and that I’ll have to cover those when fixing things. Do you handle any of those any more?”

(Yao Xin) “I handled the mortal desire to move and travel once! Not so much this age. A good thing, too. That would have hastened my bursting!”

(Charles) “Hm… Do you know where that linked to if there’s any trace of that left?… And I’m glad it didn’t!”

(Yao Xin) “Why, through the pole!”

(Charles) “Which one?”

(Yao Xin) “The Pole of Reason, that I’m connected to.”

(Charles) “I meant on the Creation side…”

(Yao Xin) “Ah! That would be the Elemental Pole of Water.”

(Charles) “Mind if I try a tracer to determine where the link comes out?”

(Yao Xin) “It won’t stress my piping, will it?”

(Charles) “Nah, it’s very small! Like this! (Charles showed them).

(Yao Xin) “Oh… why don’t you smooth it out, just in case? I wouldn’t want it to get caught.”

Charles polished it up nicely and made the “bottle” deformable and slippery and as small as possible… Yao Xin was much relieved and accepted the bottle. There was no real problem with it – but it did stop at one point and… seemed mildly… confused? Bother! The flow must split there! It wanted to go in two directions, it seemed; one still in Yu-Shan, one toward where the Pole of Reason met Creation. He’d just have to trace both…

The direction in Yu-Shan terminated in the western empty quarters and was moving along a remote gold canal lane. The one heading toward the Pole of Reason slipped into Creation where it connects to the Pole of Water. There were some minor inputs active – mostly involving expanding Creation. Evidently interstellar travel was not a thing when the Primordials made existence – thus it was out of the Heart of the Canals’ sphere of influence. Well… that should be possible to handle fairly easily – but what was going on with that canal?

(Yao Xin) “That… oh! That must be my Weaver. It’d only make sense you’d be able to track them. You’re… not going to take them away, are you!?”

(Charles) “Why would I? It’s not like they’re still stuck in your pipes!”

(Yao Xin) “Aaah… what a relief. You have no idea how lonely it gets, with nothing but boring canal gods to listen to!”

(Charles) “Hrm… Would you like a remote? That way you can tour around and talk to people! It won’t be able to channel much of your power, but you wouldn’t need much for that!”

(Yao Xin) “Only if the others get remotes too! We’re all so bored, I’m sure.”

(Charles) “Well, i don’t see why you shouldn’t!”

The segment of canal pipes Charles was talking to somehow seemed contemplative for a moment – while Charles made an appropriate set of remotes (that could be stashed in Elsewhere when not needed) and had the others and an explanation delivered to the Deva’s he’d already talked with twice.

Those were much appreciated all around. An opportunity to move around after all these millennia, even in secret and in a remote, was appreciated! In fact, Yao Xin would quite like to head over to that canal with you.

Well, why not?

Yao Xin – taking the form of a sinuous snake of quicksilver and gold, with an androgynous head – was more than happy to come along, though she did bemoan the lack of ferry-devas! No doubt they were exterminated during the “reconstruction.”

(Charles) “Well… there are lots of boatmen… I take it they were some of your first circles?”

(Yao Xin) “Of course… no need for boatmen or even crew. Or these canal gods, for that matter. I’ll have to determine what to do with them.”

(Charles) “Well, they should be on their own side of things…”

The snake-deva looked thoughtful. Most on the streets were, thankfully, simply accepting the deva as a god; the remote was pretty well cloaked – if only because it was a remote, and wouldn’t channel anything more than essence-3 stuff or so – and so looked like a rather minor god simply by default.

(Yao Xin) “I want to go swimming too! Let’s hurry!”

Charles popped them over there – which turned out to be a good idea! Whoever it was was making some decent thaumaturgic attempts to throw them off the trail. Still, given the deep level of the link, that was REALLY unlikely to work… but it was making Yao Xin unhappy!

(Charles) “What’s wrong?”

(Yao Xin) “I told . . err . . whichever of you meat creatures grows hair on the face… there would be no hiding this forever. Someone you don’t want learning it inevitably does!”

(Charles) “I think there are lots of people with hair on their face!”

(Yao Xin) “Whoever doesn’t… oh, how did the Weaver put it… whoever doesn’t look funny if they leave it on there!”

Charles explained the difference between men and women.

(Yao Xin) “Ah, a man then. It’s funny men can be Weavers! You’d think the Fates would make them all women.”

(Charles) “ I don’t think they worry about the distinction much. For them I think that Gender is pretty much just a convention.”

(Yao Xin) “Just like us, then. I like both! Ooh! Over there! I saw bubbles in the gold!”

The snake-deva excitedly dived in! The canal god rose up to ask for authorization to use the gold canal, its robes dry as dust as they always were… but instead of the usual officious smirk, there was an instinctive-looking lowering of the head as it muttered something that sounded apologetic and paddled backward – and then looked somewhat confused.

(Charles) “Not to worry! Things are getting a little odd these days!”

(Canal God) “That’s the SECOND time today…”

Charles hired a boat for the moment – but simply made a bubble and drifted down in Yao Xin’s wake when that became necessary. The gold was pleasantly warm, almost like fresh milk… Charles looked around curiously as he descended! He’d never done this before!

There were people in boats staring. It was pretty gauche not to use a boat – but Charles was known for doing all manner of weird things at this point. There’d be more gossip, even though it was already hot at the moment.

Charles thought that it was just being practical. Most people didn’t want to go to the bottom of the Canal. Even if you could make it all the way to the bottom, it moved too fast! Hundreds of miles an hour! It was rather disorienting, although Charles found it easy enough to compensate and stay on course.

There were two others in the liquid gold with him… About a hundred feet ahead, Yao Xin was seemingly unaffected at all – only natural for a deva in its own domain! The deva was swimming intently toward the source of the bottle-diversion; it appeared humanoid, although the gold was a little murky at that distance. Charles just followed along!

(Yao Xin) “What! He says he might be killed or confined if he talks to you! But… ugh. Mortals are so confusing!”

(Charles) “I could make sure nobody knows and provide some extra defenses! Would that work?”

(Yao Xin) “He wants to know how you want to make sure nobody knows! They have people in Aden watching for this sort of thing.”

Charles set up perfect privacy and perfect secret-keeping for everyone!

(Yao Xin) “I’ve never felt him so exasperated… he says the secret-keeping won’t be necessary! He never says that!. But he wants to know if you can get him into Aden unnoticed.”

(Charles) “Well… that should certainly be possible.”

(Yao Xin) “Do you want me to bring him through? He’s shaking, and that’s never good!”

(Charles) “Well… If you want! I can set it up too… to hide my involvement… make a perfectly screened transport artifact! And leave someone with a perfect impersonation going in his place…”

(Yao Xin) “He feels guilty for some reason… but he’ll take it. I think he saw this coming for a while. And… he wants a beer and someplace to smoke on the other side.”

(Charles) “Well that’s really easy!”

(Yao Xin) “I want to see Aden too! It’s been too long since I’ve seen another world-jouten.”

(Charles) “Well, no reason why not!”

And off to Aden it was for a meeting at the privacy manse – catered by Hobbits of course! There… was another attuned individual in the Manse at the moment! Still… if they wanted to be private and the new fellow wanted to be private, they’d never get any information on each other even if they’re standing next to each other…

Ah! Yao Xin (who had gotten an attunement; not only was it convenient, but it was a test for subtle geomantic damage affecting her mind). The other one wanted to interact and turned out to be… Mr Gustav! Charles hadn’t seen him in a long time! He… did look awfully tired and shaky though – and he couldn’t recall him ever asking to attune – although certain things involving Project Stanewald and informers came to mind…

(Charles) “Allo!”

(Mr Gustav) “Hahh… hello, Charles. I had expected a meeting eventually, regardless of whether I wanted it or not. You’re just too powerful to hide from for long… But it is good to see you again.”

(Charles) “Well, it’s nice to see you too! How have you been doing?”

(Mr Gustav) “Holding together, barely. I hate factional politics… and meetings… and…” (Very shaky grip on the pipe!) “There’s no point in hiding it any longer, is there? After all, I told you myself, behind the best precautions I could manage. How long is it before you sing the Song of Creation?”

(Charles) “About seven weeks if I don’t have to rush and have everything done in time!”

(Mr Gustav) “Oh, thank Heaven… who might well be a living being. Is it?”

(Charles) “Well… I’d normally ask you to promise not to tell before I’d tell you, but if you already know enough to ask the question you pretty well know the answer anyway. Please don’t spread it around for a couple of months, but yes, Yu-Shan is a Primordial.”

(Mr Gustav, looking at Yao Xin.) “I’m sorry for not believing you… and a snake, really?”

(Yao Xin) “It’s good for swimming!”

(Mr Gustav) “So… not only was I asked to do something that would destroy Heaven, it would create a new Neverborn, too.”

(Charles) “Not a good idea then!”

(Mr Gustav, in easily the angriest tone that Charles had ever heard out of him and with much puffing on his pipe) “You’d think it would be obvious. Unfortunately, SOME people have to use Unhesitating Dedication on themselves!”

The anger might be for a very good reason! That Charm made the intimacy for a plan equivalent to a Motivation – and thus something you won’t give up without a good deal of trouble!

(Charles) “That is a bit excessive… And there are better ways to accomplish that anyway! But if someone tries to initiate Stanewald before the Song – or during it – I have some plans to compensate.”

(Mr Gustav) “It’s… inevitable. I will be monitored during the procedure – and I wouldn’t put it past the High Lord to come by and help out. And there’s only so much I can do with illusions.”

(Charles) “I rather thought someone would attempt it. Almost certainly, during the performance and at the exact moment that would be worst. I should have quite enough reserves to handle it though!”

Mr Gustav… wanted to know what he was intending to do.

(Mr Gustav) “I don’t want Kristoff harmed too badly. Other than his myopia about deiphages and Stanewald, he’s not a bad person-and he is my father-in-law.”

(Charles) “Oh it shouldn’t hurt anyone – although it might leave them mote-drained if they try to fight it – but I’m planning to redirect the energies this way…”

(Mr Gustav) “Hrmm… there’ s still more potential for local disturbances than I would like. And there was a favor I wanted to request.”

(Charles, looking sad) “Unfortunately… there will probably be some local disturbances no matter what – but I’ll try to keep them minor! And what was it you need?”

(Mr Gustav) “I want to speak to Yu-Shan when she awakens. You see… for many decades, I’ve thought a sanctum as big as Heaven would inevitably have an owner. That owner would be unhappy with the condition of the place, so I wanted to make certain he or she knew not everyone was fine with that – and perhaps… at long last, there would be some reform to the Bureaucracy… I’m sure you would agree.”

(Charles) “Well… I hope to get most of the gods back to work and sort things out a bit!”

(Mr Gustav, with visible relief) “Oh, thank Heaven. Not that I thought you’d disagree, but you’re so apolitical. That’s too much of a luxury these days.”

(Charles) “Well, most politics is about how to organize things to achieve goals that most of the people involved more or less agree on, but differ on how to achieve and what priorities to assign. If they don’t agree on goals, it tends to be either gridlock or war, not politics. Since I do my projects myself, I don’t need to much in the way of politics. It’s very convenient in many ways!”

(Mr Gustav) “I envy you. But enough about my problems. I’m far behind schedule – how good is that duplicate at warding?

(Charles) “He should be quite expert!”

(Mr Gustav) “Ah, good. Not everyone can ward against the deiphages as well as me, but maintenance should be easy enough. Shall we say deiphages attacked me on the way in, you found me and healed me, and then you left me near my mission pickup point with a note? They watch me quite carefully.”

(Charles) “That will work! Would you like some better armor or a thaumaturgy boost? If they know that you’ve interacted with me at all, that should be no surprise.”

(Mr Gustav) “I… the only reason I didn’t ask was that it would be a dead giveaway. But I’ve wanted an Adenic attunement for a long time.”

(Charles) “Well… I could add a perfect concealment effect. Would that help?”

(Mr Gustav) “Of course. I’ve been hiding my attunement to here with these (tapping his glasses), which make my Lesser Sign inobvious. They won’t believe that forever, of course – but perfect concealment would go a long way.”

(Charles, setting it up) “OK then!”

Mr Gustav looked much more relaxed now. Still as reserved as ever, of course – but his Temperance WAS maxed out.

(Yao Xin) “Hooray! See how much easier it is when you ask?”

(Mr Gustav) “Thank you, Charles. I hope I don’t have to use this, but the situation is likely to require it.”

(Charles) “Well, I hope not – and at least this way you can’t get killed!”

That caused him to raise an eyebrow.

(Mr Gustav) “Through any means?”

(Charles) “Well… If they destroy your body – which is harder – you’ll wind up here in Aden, re-embodied… I don’t know whether the Exaltation will remain bound to your soul (although indications are that it should) or whether you’d wind up as a material god like the Kickaha; it’s never happened for me to be sure. There’s one sequence that could kill you of course – nothing can be truly flawless – but it’s complicated, calls for some special powers, and is perfectly hidden. It’s as close to perfect as I can make it!”

(Mr Gustav) “Hmm… that’s probably for the best, then. Astrid would be angry if I died. Is it all right if I tell her?”

(Charles) “Sure! And you can talk to her more freely; she’s got an attunement here and things too…”

(Mr Gustav) “I had suspected some kind of Adenic attunement. She looks even more lovely than usual, lately. (He sighed) I REALLY don’t want to leave, but I have no choice. I’ll have to look around Aden more when this is done… Can your Balgrogs open a gate for me?”

He provided coordinates for someplace near one of the central gates.

(Charles) “Well, it’s mostly the Mardi Gras Raksha who do gates; will that do? Otherwise I can make a quick artifact or reroute a manse gate!”

Mr Gustav did want to get to his mission on time; that was actual Celestial business, and not factional stuff – although he was pleased that they’d been able to cover for him with the ward; that would have been AWKWARD.

Charles arranged it. Yao Xin stuck around, though!

(Yao Xin) “He hasn’t been that happy in a long time!”

(Charles) “Well, I hope that it will all work out well for him!”

(Yao Xin) “And me, too!”

After they covered Yao Xin’s creation inputs the Deva opted to keep the remote in Aden for the time being, to explore – with Charles’s permission of course!

Charles gave him one of the tourist guides, with the coupons for various thing! (Which got a WEIRD look and a call for an explanation…)

(Charles) “Well… lots of people wanted to wander around and look – a lot of the weavers were very curious – so I made guidebooks and gave out coupons for various services to make it more comfortable! And there’s the Hundred Acre Wood Manse, and the Jedi Temple Manse, and the Kickaha Manse, and the Ponyville Manse…”

(Yao Xin) “Ohh… like when I pump out ferry devas and Quan Pen spits out trade goods.”

The manses were odd, and alien, to a Primordial Deva – but that was to be expected when visiting a foreign world-body. (And rather silly, even if filled with rather high-powered creatures in swarms…)

(Yao Xin) “You don’t take yourself very seriously, do you?”

(Charles) “Uhm… Why? I’ve got lots of room, so no reason why most of those things shouldn’t have a place to exist here!”

(Yao Xin, moving from side to side) “Ah, a part of your mythos, then.”

(Charles) “I suppose! Things like to exist, and there’s lots of room, so why not let them?”

(Yao Xin) “As long as they don’t get boring!”

(Charles) “Well, they haven’t so far… If they do, I’ll have to handle it then!”

Charles suggested that she visit the Atlantis manse – and headed for the Cornucopia of All and Lianza! At least anyone who was trying to trace him at the moment ess probably grinding their teeth at the rate he was hopping around…The demesne looked much as it had before, oddly fertile for random territory in Heaven!

(Charles) “Hello? Lianza? I need to talk to you!:

The plants turned toward him when he established contact.

(Lianza) “You came by before, and left too soon. Did you know this entire region used to be blanketed with my bounty?”

(Charles) “I rather suspected – and I’m sorry about being in such a rush! Are you feeling a little better now at least?”

(Lianza) “Why don’t you sit down for a spell? A Primordial as young as you shouldn’t rush things. And – yes, yes I am.”

(Charles) “Oh good! And I’m still in a bit of a rush I’m afraid… I have to get Creation ready to be disconnected from Yu-Shan, and everything set up to treat Yu-Shan, in only about seven weeks now…”

(Lianza) “Cangha told me a little about that. Seven weeks is not much time at all – but surely you could spare an hour or two?”

(Charles) “I think so!”

After all, he could keep on doing things elsewhere anyway.

Lianza… was, sadly, used to people scavenging whatever crops they could from her demesne’s edges. That was a big part of why the place wasn’t capped; it helped feed the local mortals. Still, she mostly just wanted to talk about the other devas, and catch up with affairs outside.

Charles filled her in, provided a remote, briefed her on the proposed course of treatment, and inquired as to what inputs she fed to Creation – and was appreciative of her efforts to feed the local mortals!

It was pretty much what he’d been told; she made the food of Creation tastier. Of course, an awful lot of it was reflections of Celestial delicacies, which were even better… Charles traced those inputs – although they were likely to be local now; no wonder such a lot of deep space groups relied on generic “rations”.

(Lianza) “I miss the ages when celestial wine and peaches of immortality weren’t the only staples. Ooh, yes, those are very local. Taste doesn’t travel well over THAT distance. Cytherea had to supercharge me to get it that far in old Creation.”

(Charles) “Well… Maybe I can do something about that!”

(Lianza) “You’re real sweet for a a Mighty One. I’ll have to make you something special if you pull this off.”

(Charles) “Thank you!”

Hrm… It would take quite a lot of processing power if he wanted to increase taste throughout the whole universe. She would greatly appreciate that, though! That was awkward… perhaps he could get I AM to devote some of it’s unused processing power to the project? It was just going to waste as it was – and surely I AM was personable enough to see the benefits of a sudden culinary boost to the universe. It might just need the directive; that was just providing a bit of extra and harmless information to people, and It didn’t seem like THAT would require the Solar Deliberative. After all, there was little danger that could come from cooking – unless it was a Solar recipe that people would kill for, and even then you could just give everyone a copy.

Charles spent some more time with Lianza, fixed up the area to be more the way she’d like it (which mostly involved sending in a few people to do the weeding), and boosted things where it wouldn’t trigger Stanewald too soon – while making sure that the countermeasures were at least up to moderating it if, for some reason, someone started it early! He wouldn’t want to be caught unprepared!

On Lianza’s end… she really appreciated the remote! It wasn’t quite as good as really getting out, but it was a LOT better than being stuck! (In fact, the only one who hadn’t been really enthused about the remotes was Dumenza-who, of course, got transported at random to a different location in the Solar System every day, and had a most magnificent view of the universe from there. He only needed one to talk with the others – but he did need to do that! The universe was a lovely place, but sadly did not answer back!).

Meanwhile, in England, Aikiko had been just about to leave the Hedgeroms when she recalled something that she’d quite forgotten about! That entire middle school which had supposedly wandered across the boundaries on a field trip and was about to be sold at the fair… Argh! She really ought to buy them too! And… it was worth cheating on the travel to get back in time for THAT.

The sellers… were a moderately unpleasant bunch, who were assuring potential buyers that the entire school was demolished in a “gas explosion” and some fake remains were magicked up; the kids are all presumed dead, and no one will be looking for them! Fortunately, most potential buyers were waiting to confirm that before buying…

Urk! Buying 112 kids would be expensive, even if she did have the backing… And… gas explosion. Uh huh. Man, when did she start becoming a slaver with good intentions? At least they should be happier in Aden, or better still, with their parents. It looked like… the “explosion” had been arranged after they were collected as a cover – but the school was indeed pretty much a big crater now. Memorial services were being held, there was an investigation under way, and so on.

That was awkward. For the moment at least… to Aden with them. Perhaps she could arrange a reunion after the gates are open – and it wasn’t like Aden didn’t have rather a lot of ex-slaves and refugees aboard now.

There are a few approaches to the young woman who apparently controls fabulous wealth though – as well as (yet another) gratuitous gang of bandits on the way out; someone who claimed to be Robin Hood and his Merry Men! They wanted an archery competition – unless, of course, she’d rather just hand over her purse and be their guest for a forest feast!

It looked like… mostly half-fey. Banditry was a pretty dangerous job these days, and the few fey who did it tended towards the “dashing romantic highwayman” routine. Well… she could get another purse. Why not? Aikiko handed over a pouch full of golden coins and such (doubtless to be cashed in modern England) – and she was hailed as a good sport and their honored guest!

Oh dear. She’d better not mention this to Charles, or he’d be making a Sherwood Forest manse… Wait, did he already HAVF a Sherwood Forest Manse? (As it happened, yes he did – a cross between the Disney talking-animal version and the Errol Flynn version). The feast was quite entertaining though, even if whole roasted deer and such was new to her – and there were medieval bardic tales, singing, drinking, and a wide variety of entertainments – many involving small amounts of magic. Still a fairly high-priced night out for Earth, but pretty reasonably by Yu-Shan’s standards!

Quite a lot of the “Merry Men” were fairly obvious half-fey though; it was pretty obvious that they couldn’t get along in “modern” England. They did like news from the outside world though! They’d heard some REALLY odd rumors and travelers tales…

Well, they couldn’t get out without causing a fuss… she listened and confirmed the ones that were true.

There was some muttering over the confirmation of the middle school rumor! That school was close enough that a number of the more passable offspring of various feybloods – including two from here – got sent there when the paperwork could be covered. The news greatly upset one young and one middle-aged woman and a couple of the men.

(Aikiko) “Oh dear. Your kids?”

Yes of course. They were of the opinion that SOMETHING would have to be done – but what could they do?

It was easy enough to get their kids out of Aden and return them home – but the kids were full of glowing reports of a land where everything was wonderful!

(Aikiko) “That’s Aden! Um… would you like to move there? Trust me, you won’t be out of place at all.”

(“Robin”) “Er… Children are easy to fool! We’d have to see this place first – and hear about why it’s so welcoming!”

(Aikiko) “Why don’t I take you on a tour?”

There were few objections to that – so they got the tour. After all, if they wanted to keep up the Robin Hood thing, there was certainly room for a show rather than banditry. Admittedly, a lot of the fey “victims” went along with the narrative – but they had no objections at all.

Aikiko considered… those slavers didn’t exactly sit right with her. That was REALLY disruptive for that side of the hedges – and for the kids! Still… from what she got from the kids… the cross-over might have been entirely accidental, and the slavers had simply taken advantage of it and pulled a cover-up rather than just steering them back out. Nasty, but not as bad as setting it up in the first place. The barriers are awfully blurry around here. From the parents’ reactions…it was nasty by the local standards too; the usual response was just to steer them back into England proper. If you really had to have slaves, there were always street children and such (if not nearly as many as there used to be). It wasn’t really acceptable at all to take slaves that way – although it wasn’t banned, if only for lack of large-scale law enforcement. After all, it was in really poor taste, was courting trouble, and was likely to draw serious objections from some powerful people. The sellers were either stupidly greedy or needed a lot of cash fast for something.

That might require some investigating! That was an awful lot of slaves! Might they have quietly steered them across the boundary? Who would need to sell that many slaves at once? Sure, the locals were poor, but even by their standards, that was a big sale. Even at the fair… there’d be few potential buyers for that many, even if it would probably be easy enough to get rid of them in small batches.

Bother it! She might just have to poke around a bit more before leaving!

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/16/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxii-interviewing-the-blitzkrieg/feed/0ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXXI – The Chaotic Forginghttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxi-the-chaotic-forging/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxi-the-chaotic-forging/#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 03:39:33 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20857]]>In Yu-Shan, Charles was headed for the central peak, trying to trace the essence flows to the exact location of the last few poles! The Jade Pleasure Dome was pretty much in the center of Yu-Shan: a building a mile high, and no other building in the place could be taller than it. The reason for that law wasn’t really known… Perhaps it was some occult principle holding the geomancy together, a pre-War taboo, or something else entirely? (Note that, in our Yu-Shan, the official map is a bit off).

That was a bother – but the elemental pole should be considerably larger than any single building – and the links to Creation were probably outside the dome unless the Games were tied into them somehow. Charles… settled down on a park bench for the moment and started tossing beacon-bottles into the various essence flows that went into the central peak – quite a few of which came back out again of course.

The (relatively) small outcropping-peak that Jade Pleasure Dome sat upon was quite impressive indeed, given that it was an enormous mass of pure adamant! It hummed with power and glowed with its own light. Gods surrounded the place, bargaining, dickering, and (for the most desperate) outright begging for tickets inside to watch the Games. It was sad that, with the city as it was, watching the Incarnae play the Games of Divinity was STILL the sign that you had “made it”.

Charles had larger matters on his mind. Besides, he’d had a peek – and he hadn’t been all that impressed what with Dudael to shield him from the mental influence. A good thing, since the Games were the most addictive thing in the universe, able to ensnare even incautious Exalted. Yet, if what the Celestial lions had told him was true, the Incarnae themselves were immune. Then why did they play so much? Speculation for another time, though! He was busy probing!

His probes… split in MANY directions once they hit the Dome. Most slid down the mountain and deep into the underground levels – headed right to the bottom. Some of those then dropped into Creation, someplace to the galactic south of Earth’s location. Others instead rose far above the mountain, to the Sky Dome’s center. The rest – and it certainly seemed like far too few! – dispersed across the city. Some of those looked like they’d eventually hit the other poles.

Well, he’d have been VERY surprised if there hadn’t been essence flowing between the poles.

The ones to Creation… Well, there were the Oort Cloud tie-ins he’d already handled; they had some inputs from here as well – but it looked like the Matter Pole was doing several things. It allowed elementals to exist as physical beings by default – thus making their interaction with Creation easier while similarly complicating their ability to go insubstantial. That function was most effective on (of course) wood elementals. It also bound the souls of mortal beings to living bodies and soothed the elemental energies enough that eating hot or cold foods wasn’t likely to kill a mortal being. Finally, it also governed the non-pleasure related aspects of taste and texture. There was a weak link to the Elemental Pole of Pleasure involved with that particular function. It… pretty much eased the nourishment of physical bodies – perhaps a necessity when your kind was used to spiritual ones?

That was going to be HARD to substitute for; it had to be moderating the effect of the entire earth elemental pole – or at least a portion of it’s output. Still, it was only a small portion… He’d have to put manses around the earth at the vertexes of a dodecahedron to match with the five poles. Fine adjustments would call for a dedicated synergistic overmind too. They’d need to be indestructible, and have an exceptional range of influence – and probably have some feeder manses and dedicated guardian forces. A good thing that he could make manses very quickly indeed!

Ah, the hassles of working with Nascent Ones! Not that a mature Primordial would be that much easier… PLUS the hassles of working with a system which was never designed to exist without Primordial inputs…

Charles sighed, opened his eyes, and got up to head for the next pole! He had to get things scheduled! Straight up to the Pole of Adamant at the center of the Sky Dome… He’d have to fly to get there – but that was pretty trivial, and it was even legal to do so as long as you were quiet about it!

Currently, Mars’ star hung high in the starry night sky… Probably not for TOO much longer, though; the Sun had has his ways of getting the lead back.

Charles… was being quite careful not to ram his head into the sky. It was easier than he’d expected, as he rose from the marbled central streets and their elegant gold and silver skyscrapers it swiftly became apparent – even if it was normally almost invisible from the ground – that the dome did have structural supports. He could simply keep an eye on their curve as the sun rose again over Heaven. The (many) portions of the city that were empty definitely felt like they were getting a less brilliant form of that light. It felt like something in the Dome itself, far above, was blocking it. Up here… yes, that was most certainly a projection, and it was dimmer above the empty quarters. It felt like it was coming from the very center of the Dome, right above the Jade Pleasure Dome and the mountain.

Hmm… Well, it wasn’t the “correct” light source, so interfering was pretty reasonable… And to the center of the dome it was!

The pinnacle of the Sky Dome was a cap of solid adamant – some of the purest he’d ever seen. It was perfectly smooth, and glimmered with the light of the Sun. The sun’s presence didn’t quite feel right on it though! Well… he looked at the essence flows and started trying to map them to Creation!

The adamant’s Essence felt different as well – purer, more intense, and almost white jade-like in its solidity. The Essence flows did indeed go to the top-northward-portion of the Oort Cloud. There were signs of his prior work dispersing the energy flows, and odd feelings. Almost an equivalent to the kind of static shock that you’d get from touching a metal object after dragging your socked feet on a carpet.

Well, he’d already covered the control input to Creation… On the Yu-Shan end… it was the seed for all the adamant in Yu-Shan. It connected to the structural supports, which were sturdy pipes. They connected to the adamant sublayer. Within the pipes, there were many, many long-unused spigots and valves… They felt like they could extend or retract as needed. There was something else in the Sky Dome, about at the center. It was invisible from the outside, but there was a ring of green and blue jade within, also retractable. It felt almost alive, much like the pinnacle.

Instead of solidity and static, though, that felt of reserves of gasses – a dizzying variety of gasses. For making weather, differing environments, and that sort of thing? It was linked to… the pole of wood rather than air. Quite a few of those gases were hallucinogens and toxins-weapons – which did fall under Wood’s purview – and by extension, the world-body’s Pole of Matter. So… weather and internal defenses?

Oh dear. They were multiply-connected – and to places outside the usual list… it was going to be very difficult to determine if everything was covered. Evidently the construction of Creation had not been easy – and he was trying to more or less reverse-engineer it! He’d just have to deploy lots and lots of search teams to look for secondary controls…

It looked like… the Pole of Matter handled taste and texture for things you should eat. The connection between it and the Pole of Adamant – enhanced by the deva he’d just found – involved the taste and texture of poisonous things – plants and animals alike. Which was to say… invoking the physical instinct NOT to eat things like that. Also, it covered the weather and security systems for the entire world-body.

There was either a lot less built into creation’s creatures than he’d thought, things had stabilized over time, or this was mostly redundant backup systems… Of course, humans could somewhat function in the Wyld and physical beings seemed to do just fine with only minor physical prompting so the last two seemed most likely!

(Charles) “Allo there!”

There was a slow stirring on the other end. A spigot deployed from the ring, right next to him. And, out of it it popped… a cloud, like the ones people could summon through prayer. The cloud felt like anticipation.

Charles sent some anticipation and friendliness back – and got the feeling that whatever was in there wanted him to sit on the cloud.

Why not?

It was as comfortable as any transit cloud, to be sure – like a silken pillow. And he heard a voice in his head, that… smelled. Whatever smell that was, it was pleasant and not at all a part of Creation.

(Cloud) “Ah… Cangha told me of you. It’s about time you visited.”

(Charles) “Well, I was trying to get all the support and control inputs to Creation sorted out! And visit everyone and all the poles at the same time. It’s pretty complicated!”

(Cloud) “Now that’s a complicated system – the most complex extra-world-body construct since Zen Mu. Ah… I’m Huajen, the Lattice of Vapors, by the way – the second line of Yu-Shan’s security triumvirate.”

(Charles) “I’m Charles Dexter Ward – or sometimes Aden Shining Dream – and I fix things!… Hm… I get the feeling that one reason that Yu-Shan had to sleep was because all of her Devas would be fully occupied with control inputs to creation, at least at first, and that that would become less necessary as Creation stabilized since it actually proved too stable for a proper shut-down last time around?”

(Huajen) “Hmm… you’re not actually a Nascent One. There’s too much meat there. But you have at least some knowledge of how that process worked. When the young mistress fell asleep to merge with Gaia, the polar energies intermingled and interfaced with us. I myself was responsible for all physical toxins, hallucinogens, and mind-altering substances – and some interfacing with the Pole of Air for weather. I’m mostly linked to the Pole of Wood, but it was necessary to get the correct balances. (There was a sensation of confusion) I’m afraid I don’t understand the full scope-I’m only one being. The young mistress and Ayuji attempted to explain, but I still didn’t fully understand. It was indeed wildly complex, as you’d expect the structure of physical and mental existence to be. Many symbolic associations, such as emotions with weather and food, did not start out that way; it took many decades of linking and connection before they became less physical.”

(Charles) “Hm… So if I locate everyone and the poles, I should be able to sort out all the continuing control input necessities – which will free all of you up too.”

(Huajen) “I would enjoy that very much. It’s stifling, being stuck in my central structure. I’m sure the others would agree.”

(Charles) “Well, it’s more things that need fixing!”

Well, at least that would be a relatively short list! The Devas and Poles should cover it. The Devas inputs, at least, should be replicable with a small group of manses; they’ve had to be more fine control than raw power. That was very good considering the time pressure!

Next up… the Pole of Reason! He had been relying an awful lot on deduction and theory after all…

That led him back to the Heart of the Canals – but the canal gods were happy to let him back in; they were quite grateful for his fixing things. They weren’t even wearing the anti-heat and molten metal armor any more. Everything was working just fine. It was now only comfortably warm beneath the aboveground facility instead of being sweltering. The mechanisms occasionally whistled and hissed, but that was to be expected with steam. The pool of molten gold and quicksilver was no longer boiling, though it was still too hot to dive into without protection. Probes… extended all the way to the bottom, just beneath the Heart of the Canals’ mechanisms.

Since it was all working properly, Charles scanned around! Was the manse a part of the elemental pole, or just very near it? Ah… very near, and connected to it, but not truly part of it. Charles checked with Yao Xin to see what control inputs he put into Creation – and tossed the usual essence-bottles into the outflow to the pole.

(Yao Xin) “I was to give sapient beings the desire to be… better, or at least different from how they currently are, and to give nonsapients the urges that helped them learn and grow. That was very stressful, you know – meat isn’t an easy material to work with – and over extra-world-body distances, too! It would have been even harder had Cangha and I not been compatible with Gaia’s Pole of Water.”

(Charles) “Hm! So your input flows into the pole of water then – at least primarily. Do you still have to do that much, or has a lot of it become a part of Creations basic pattern?”

(Yao Xin) “Thankfully, no! That engaged most of my being for a century or two, and was arduous. I… probably would have exploded by now if it were still at the initial level.”

(Charles) “Ah good! That means that I can set up some automatic systems to handle the current load relatively easily… And I’m glad you haven’t exploded!”

Yao Xin was glad too… That would have caused considerable damage to Yu-Shan’s being as well as killing her – and Yu-Shan wasn’t in a state to create a replacement Third Circle at the moment.

Since everything was going well, Charles traced the control inputs, checked out their nature – and designed manses to handle them.

Lets see… that left the Pole of Mind and Xiang, the Gallery of Captured Dreams – located deep beneath the empty quarters of southern Yu-Shan. It was a windy journey in the tunnels – and there were several clashes with wild deiphage herds (which were duly healed (Charles was hiding less and less as time got shorter) and sent off for re-orientation!), some encounters with traps (including a nasty spiked falling block and a mechanical set of puzzle chambers), and various barriers – but, eventually, Charles reached a chamber full of guardian scarabs, guarding a sealed door… The writ will get him through, but with their chittering voices, they asked if he really wanted to go in there!

(Charles) “I’m afraid that I pretty much have to! I have to talk to some very old presences…”

(Scarabs) “Then raissse your ssssshaping protections… whatever is in the sssecond chamber sssstinks of the Wyld!”

(Charles) “They’re pretty much inherent these days!”

The Scarabs stopped their constant crawling over the doors long enough for him to enter.

And on into the Gallery of Captured Dreams! At a guess, a bunch of Raksha or Unshaped in a Deva!

It was… a museum. What with the name, that wasn’t entirely unexpected. The first chamber was lovely, with frescoes all over the walls depicting Yu-Shan – who was apparently quite busy before Creation came to be. There she was, a razored four-petalled blossom in her world-jouten form, devouring things that were likely Unshaped. They were hard for even Charles’ mind to process… The door to the next room resembled an airlock – and there was a STRONG Wyld resonance there… Charles addressed the airlock itself.

(Charles) “Hello! I need to speak with Xiang!”

(A female voice, full of laughter) “Ahahaha! Finally, a shaped being dares the Gallery of Captured Dreams! The great experiment has succeeded! I’m Xiang! And what do you call yourself?”

(Charles) “Charles Dexter Ward!”

(Xiang) “Then come in… being that is both Nascent One and meat at the same time! Come in, and see my works!”

(Charles) “And I have to arrange for Yu-Shan to be able to break free from Creation without disrupting it… And OK!”

(Xiang) “Bah! It has been too long! I chafe against this chrysalis, unable to see if the first great experiment worked. Perhaps you know enough to evaluate my works. Aha! But first, the lock!”

The door opened – and Charles headed on through! As expected, it was basically an airlock – but designed to hold in wyld influences rather than air! There were diagnostics – from the very archaic Old Realm text, to determine if he was a Shapeless masquerading as a Nascent One. But all his internal devas passed the test; they were actual devas, not emanations made to read that way. A good thing that he’d figured out how to do the upgrades!

The TRUE gallery was a cross between an art museum and a hazmat facility. There were countless Raksha here, frozen in place, in various tableaus or simply preserved. They were a little different than the Raksha Charles was used to, though… normally, a Raksha would have an Assumption, or be formless chaos! All of these were in various in-between states, though: some with their Graces arranged in various patterns in the chaos, others with partially-formed bodies, and still others with what appeared to be Assumptions. They weren’t actually real enough though. Powerful enough to be both at once? It really didn’t quite look like it… quite a lot of them had facial expressions of terror, or fear. Some were holding their limbs, whatever they were, in front of their faces, or looked like they were screaming.

(Charles) “Uhm… Were they in the middle of taking form there?”

(Xiang, wistfully) “Ah, the first great experiment… to give the Shapeless form! From the time Time began, I tried. But the silly things were unable to take it without… complications.”

(Charles) “Uhm… it has to come from an internal expression of their own narrative; trying to force them into a form of someone else’s design is going to disrupt them!”

(Xiang) “Their narratives were also formless. Thus, the second great experiment: to create a touchstone! Something solid, something real: an anchor! A splendid idea on Gaia’s part! You have no idea how much persuasion it took for me to persuade the kid – and to convince Dumenza to stand down. So… did it work?”

(Charles) “Hm… They do need something to react to… I’d say that it worked to a reasonable extent! They have to abandon portions of their internal narrative to squeeze down though!”

(Xiang) “That was inevitable – which is a shame. Ah well, they’re resourceful little things. I’ll have to explain it to the ones that haven’t been tested yet!”

(Charles) “Well, would you rather let some who have already done it explain? If you won’t catch them or insist they stay I can probably talk them into it!”

(Charles) “I meant to the ones that you’ve already got – unless you’ve already tried on all of them?”

(Xiang) “Too long, much too long! I only wanted to provoke them, not give them long term hatred. That warps the narrative too much . . ergh. Fine, I’ll need the help corralling the really angry ones.”

Hm… It looked like the ones on display were salvageable. If they were given something real to push against that wasn’t Yu-Shan’s world body or Xiang’s personal narrative of giving chaos form, they could reconcile it with their own narrative! That was good! Fortunately time didn’t mean much to them unless something was happening! He’d have to arrange it!

(Xiang) “Heh. And I remember you saying something about getting the kid back to the Wyld. That’s something I can get behind-it’s been too long since I experimented! Why don’t you come back to the archives?”

(Charles, coming along) “Why not?”… Uhm… do you exercise any control over creation by the way?”

(Xiang) “Not that much any more – but when the kid’s brothers and sisters were forming the place, I was responsible for imagination! All kinds of imagination… I guess it’s appropriate since I was the one who worked with the Wyld the most. Now if you wanted that imagination to become reality? Go talk to Muquinas in the Primal Forge. He’s the Jouten-Creation Interface. (And in a more worried tone) I hope those geomantic disruptions didn’t hurt him too badly. Nice deva, despite coming from the Great Maker. Real inventive type, just like me!”

(Charles, considering) “I think enough chaos has been infused into Creation to cover the imagination part… And I’ll have to talk to everybody I think!”

The Archives were huge and dimly lit. There were several compressed Unshaped in here: a storm of whirling colors, a forest of shadows, a city built of light, and a sea full of emotions.

Charles waved! They probably weren’t too aware, but it was really hard to tell with Unshaped as far as he’d heard!

And… there was a tube, similar to a Tender’s pod, with a woman inside. Her hair shimmered with the colors of the Wyld, most of which did not exist in Creation, and her skin was opalescent. Goggles covered her eyes, and she wore a bodysuit with the narrative of form and structure upon it. Of course there was a white coat, crumpled on the floor, right next to the tube.

(Xiang, speaking from the tube) “You’re… smaller than you looked on the systems. Are you even a century old?”

(Charles) “No! I’m almost fifteen now!”

(Xiang) “Wow… just what are you? It shouldn’t be possible for meat to channel that much power.”

(Charles) “I’m really not too sure any more!”

(Xiang) “I’ll have to study you when I’m free. How long on that? I wasn’t kidding about the chafing.”

(Chiang) “It should be a little under two months now!”

(Xiang) “Phew… not long at all. We’ll have to hold a Carnival of Meeting after this.”

(Charles) “Well, presuming that it all works! Otherwise it would be bad!”

(Xiang) “Yeah, let me look over those plans… I heard something about a Wyld layer in there, which I’ve wanted for… since before there was Time.”

Charles pulled them up – despite their absurd complexity.

(Xiang) “Hahaha! A Yu-Shan, for the Shaped and Shapeless alike? And for the meat, and the Tenders, and the gods… it’s a good thing I can have multiple manifestations. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see it all at once.”

(Charles) “Well, it will open more possibilities all around! And… it will probably be the only way to get around all the people who would oppose any single shift; it will be going the way they want it to for pretty much everyone!”

(Xiang) “Cangha and Yao Xin said there was a lot of them who’d object. Say… can you get me one of these Sidereal thingies I keep hearing about? Apparently I can channel my power through them!”

(Charles) “Well, once everyone is out and about again you can talk to them and see! There will likely be one!”

(Xiang) “Aw… stupid Yao Xin and Quan Pen being lucky. Two months isn’t that long – I’ll just have to make a deal.”

(Charles) “There’s no accounting for luck really.”

(Xiang) “I know! So… you’re doing all this through Manses. Sort of like the Great Maker and his Artifacts. Lots of Wyld Revocation, then?”

(Charles) “I like Wyld Revocation! And I do wind up using a lot of it!”

(Xiang) “Well, use it all you want, kid. And stick those Manses someplace where the hannya or whatever you call them won’t eat them!”

(Charles) “They aren’t too big a worry now! Things have gotten a lot larger! (And it was time for the POWERS OF TEN video!)

(Xiang) “Okay, that would be a bother if I hadn’t ordered Dumenza to set up that embassy. Is it still there?”

(Charles) “The one to the wyld? Yes it is – but it’s not used much these days.

(Xiang) “Ahaha… that’s a shame. Why?”

(Charles) “Well, the gods haven’t had much interest in talking to the Raksha since the last crusade of theirs nearly destroyed Creation.”

(Xiang) “Okay, that was definitely them getting annoyed by whatever’s kept it up this long. If they nearly destroyed it after… what was it, about three, four thousand years? It’s a good thing that it’s bigger now.”

(Charles) “ It does provide a lot more defensive resources! A fair number of them have moved in pretty much permanently though!”

(Xiang) “Well, if like you said, there were more invading, they got stuck! They’d HAVE to use these assumption thingies to survive the calcification. And developing a narrative to coexist with the house of the Primordials, as opposed to destroying it, would be necessary to settle down someplace.”

(Charles) “Yep! They’ve gotten used to the place now, and generally want to keep it around – even if they like to claim otherwise.”

(Xiang) “Haha! The experiment was more successful than the kid and I expected. What a pleasant surprise!”

(Charles) “Well, once they started picking narratives that gave them more or less stable identities, the nature of those narratives was more or less random – and if they weren’t compatible, they tended to leave…”

(Xiang) “Eh, that would happen.”

(Charles) “Anyway… that’s what I’m going to need to do!”

(Xiangs) “Eh. Whether or not you’re a Nascent One, you’ve got enough infrastructure to pull it off… I’ve got only two worries. Ayuji isn’t talking, even to Cangha. Ayuji doesn’t stop talking. Ever. And you’re working with something that took a lot of Primordials to make in the first place. From what you told me, the Emerald Mother got lucky with HER alterations.”

(Charles) “Well, Gaia mostly mirrored the most durable, stable, portion of the basic structure… I don’t know whether to try to check with Ayuji next or last!”

(Xiang) “Just… don’t get too crazy with your alterations on the Creation side. I assume you already got Yu-Shan’s permission? It’s polite! Still, try to track down Ayuji! She and the kid were inseparable before!”

(Charles) “I’m still betting that she’s hiding in the loom…”

(Xiang) “Well, is it still threaded?”

(Charles) “Yes! Although I suspect that she’s kind of overloaded!”

(Xiang) “With that big an area, I wouldn’t be surprised… but if it’s threaded, she is the thread! Why can’t the kid sense her?”

(Xiang) “That’s what the kid always said… can’t stay in one place! But Bayanji – you know her as the Algedonic Palace – can tell you about when she did.” (Xiang smiled in the tube, as if remembering something fondly.)

(Charles) “Well… I’d better go; there are several more people to talk to!”

(Xiang) “Come back soon! It gets lonely in here.”

(Charles) “I will if I can!”

He headed for the Primal Forge.

The Primal Forge was in the middle of a large empty quarter, a hundred acres of industrial wasteland in eastern Yu-Shan, right in the center of a maze of pipes and iron walls. The lions patrolling this area – surrounding an ancient manse that was normally a high crime to even attempt to penetrate – wanted to know why Charles’s writ brought him HERE of all places. After all, the defenses inside were reputed to have killed every God or Exalt who did manage to get inside.

(Charles) “Because the Forge was involved in creating the links between Yu-Shan and Creation, and I need to talk to it!”

(Wangyu, who had gotten the word from his superiors) “Talk to it? There’s a Deva in THERE?”

(Charles, reasonably) “How else would you get defenses capable of overwhelming everyone who’s attempted to get in to date? Exalts are often very hard to kill! But a Deva can match the power level, and being supported by the Forge gives it almost limitless energy reserves.”

(Wangyu) “You might have a point – but good luck finding the Deva in there. You’ll handle most of the defenses fine – but it’s as big as Yu-Shan inside!”

(Charles) “That’s why I’m knocking! To target the defenses, the controller must be able to sense intrusions, so it will be aware of me and what I’m doing – which is trying to get an interview!”

(Wangyu) “Eh, you’ve got a writ, and knowing you, you’re excited. I want you to be careful, though!”

(Charles) “I will be!”

Wangyu and the other lions on duty stood aside and watched… No one had attempted to penetrate the Forge in a great while, much less legally.

Charles did indeed wander up and knock – while broadcasting into the Primal Forge.

(Charles) “Mr Muquinas? Xiang thought that it might be best if I talked to you next!”

The whole place started to hum – and a voice, like it was in some pain, spoke…

(Muquinas) “Help… me… Autochthon? Help…”

It took hardly any analysis at all to diagnose an extreme power shortage. Charles promptly channeled in some geomantic relay points and did a few obvious repairs. Unfortunately… the Primal Forge was a major site for the old geomancy. He’d have to repair some of those connections, and cause the amount of “pure” geomancy to go up, to do it right – and it was already at almost 73%. This would boost it by about 1% – and if it hit 75%… the Bronze faction would almost certainly try to start Stanewald, even if the WEREN’T yet ready for it!

As the geomantic power flowed in, the humming grew louder. The lions stepped back… While they were no cowards, this was a little beyond the usual!

Well… it was already in an abandoned district and it would take some time for the effect to spread…

The place was already humming pretty loudly. – but the increasing energy-flow sent glowing channels of Essence through all the pipes and walls… and the ground, tracing out the local geomancy. THAT shouldn’t matter much though! No one lived here after all (the lions made sure of that) – and it was someone asking for help…

And it wasn’t like there weren’t plenty of rumors about him already.
[
The door opened with quite a grind; it HAD been many millennia.

(Wangyu) “Kid . . whoever that was called you Autocthon. Are you really… him?”

(Charles) “Nope! There are some resemblances though!”

(Wangyu) “If that’s a Deva… of who? Tell me when you get back here.”

(Charles) “OK!”

Inside it was dim and it’s huge; the entry room had it’s own horizon despite being indoors. It was also surprisingly disorganized. Machinery and crates, the latter long-worn, were everywhere around him, all locked down. The locks… hummed with Essence that felt quite deadly. Beneath him he could hear the sounds of yet more machinery. Ahead, corridors and catwalks stretched toward the horizon. Dusty skylights of reinforced adamant provided the only light. (There was lighting around, but much like Dudael it was industrial – and there was no sign of an on switch.

(Charles) “Allo! Does that help any?”

(Muquinas) “It stopped the bleeding, but I still hurt.”

(Charles) “What’s hurting?”

(Muquinas) “Everything.”

(Charles) “Hm… are you still tied to all the links with Creation? Or is there some other way I can help?”

(Muquinas) “You… know what I am?”

(Charles) “Well, mostly! I’ve spoken to a fair number of the others and to Yu-Shan!”

(Muquinas) “Make it stop. This wasn’t meant to happen; I’m not compatible with the current geomancy. It hurts…”

And the entire Forge… coughed.

Oh dear! There was only one thing to do! the geomantic flows were differently arranged and not compatible, but he couldn’t put them back without risking starting Stanewald = so Charles set up a ring of artifacts (adamant spikes, rather like the tenders needles scaled up) to adjust it so that it felt like the old geomancy across Yu-Shan from inside and the outside mostly shunted around it. He had to tie in some manse power sources, but that was no big deal.

(Muquinas) “Ahh… that feels so much better. Are you sure you aren’t some manifestation of the master?”

(Charles) “ I’m pretty sure! I’m new, and he’s been unconscious for quite a while. I’ll have to treat him after Yu-Shan!”

(Muquinas) “But Za’el is with you… ah, I see. He finally went through with it.”

(Charles) “Well, I think he’s a special case!”

(Muquinas) “Treat Yu-Shan… are you going to fix this?”

Charles went through the show-and-explain-the-plans routine again.

(Muquinas) “And you have her permission, which should help. That was more than they got… why did they do such a thing? Why did they hurt me so much?”

(Charles, sighing) “I think, in large part, ignorance – part real, part willful. There was a lot of damage to everyone during the war, and a lot of bitterness afterwards. I don’t know if even the Incarnae really knew you were here – but I’m pretty sure that hardly anyone else did. I’m sorry it was so long!”

(Muquinas) “I miss Autochthon.”

(Charles) “I have to help him next!”

(Muquinas) “Still not well, then.”

(Charles) “No – but he’s not as badly off as Yu-Shan is.”

(Muquinas) “I see… I hope you can set this up properly then – and that I can channel the Essence properly.”

(Charles) “Oh dear. I’m afraid that it will probably be almost two months before I can fix it entirely”.
(Muquinas) “I can manage.”

(Charles) “To finish setting up I do have to provide replacements for Yu-Shan’s control inputs into Creation… Do you have any information on that? I think that you were involved in setting them up to start with.”

(Muquinas) “Well… yes, back when I was one of Autocthon’s souls. It was quite a project.”

He went go on for quite a bit about the differences and similarities between Gaia and Yu-Shan’s Essence flows, and the testing which had determined which of them would have to sleep, and the testing before that to determine which Primordials would be best to build Creation upon. Then he started in on the control inputs!

Charles carefully recorded each bit of information with several recording artifacts!

(Muquinas) “That was… deva surgery, more or less. That’s why Creation was built upon Nascent Ones, you see. A mature Primordial’s devas are too… set in structure and disconnected from their originating geomancy. But if you alter a Nascent One deva’s Manse, or create Manses that take their structure into account to do so, it’s much easier. And as the Deva of Autochthon in charge of the project, I myself had enough malleability to become part of the interface. For he is one as well, and…”

Somehow the Primal Forge is blushing.

(Charles) “And they transplanted your manse structure to a compatible demesne set up here?

(Muquinas) “Well… yes! That’s a very intimate matter – you normally don’t discuss that. It would be like you taking all your clothes off in front of everyone.”

(Charles) “Well, yes – but I’m more or less being a Primordial Physician at the moment.”

(Charles) “I think it’s necessary! If I’m going to repair and modify the structure of Yu-Shan, I’d best have every possible detail – and it will be much safer for you if I do!”

(Muquinas) “If you must…”

(Charles) “I’m sorry about the intrusion…”

(Muquinas) “Just be delicate. Please?”

Charles was – and very fast. The environment shifted around him while he did, into a dizzying variety of workshops. If only he had the time to look around! Some of those places were incredible for Wyld shaping and mass manufacturing. Workshops were always neat!

He got a good look at the security, too: it was a good thing that he’d knocked. There were all kinds of “bad touch” and high-damage weapons in here. That would definitely have been a pain!

(Charles) “I’m finished!”

(Muquinas) “That was awkward. But did you get everything you needed?”

(Charles) “I think so! It would be nice to work with you sometime when matters are a bit less desperate and you’re feeling better!”

(Muquinas) “Ah, good… you take care of Za’el, all right?”

(Charles) “I intend to!”

Tagged: Background, Campaign Log, Exalted, Role Playing Game, RPG, White Wolf]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/14/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxxi-the-chaotic-forging/feed/0ThothAurora Ward – Research; The Arith Vayahttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/aurora-ward-research-the-arith-vaya/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/aurora-ward-research-the-arith-vaya/#commentsSat, 13 Sep 2014 04:31:47 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20854]]>Unfortunately, most of this material is derived from the records of a very YOUNG Arith Vaya – and so may be relatively superficial or even contain some outright errors, although any such are likely to be fairly minor.

The Arith Vaya are a species of living rotating-wheel style space stations/sublight generation ships. They’re normally 600 to 700 miles across and have lifespans of four to five million years.

Their lifecycle begins with a spaceship-seed – a fusion-powered bioship loaded with immense archives of genetically-stored information by it’s “parents” and sent off to a moon, asteroid, or small planet. There the seed will grow, extracting necessary raw materials from the rocks and atmosphere (if any). The initial growth is relatively fast by the standards of the Arith Vaya; it rarely takes more than a few millennia for a child to reach it’s adult mass and to blast itself free to return to space.

Once in a stable freefall orbit, the nascent Arith Vaya will reconfigure itself into its adult wheel-station form, establish some simple internal biomes to provide magical energy to work with, and begin to develop it’s mind under the “tutelage” (stimulation?) of any other Arith Vaya in the area – although its “parents” usually take a primary role. Limited-purpose (but MUCH faster) electro-chemical sub-brains develop first, but the central consciousness – based on storing information as genetic strings – develops and processes information far more slowly (although it can handle vast amounts of it at the same time). When you “talk” to an Arith Vaya, you’re usually talking with a sub-brain working with relatively limited information at any given moment – and by human standards they STILL aren’t very fast. Deep archive searches… may take many years and the sub-brains will often have no idea of what is to be found in them.

Once fully “awake” a young Arith Vaya will send probe-seeds to any lifebearing worlds in the system and build a current genetic archive to add to it’s hereditary archives – and will populate their internal biomes with more advanced lifeforms. Current and recently extinct local lifeforms tend to be favorites.

Full (if still childish) consciousness will develop around 200,000 – 225,000 years – and the new Arith Vaya will prepare to begin it’s period of wandering.

When the time comes to leave a solar system, an Arith Vaya will shut down it’s solar collectors, switch the support systems for it’s internal biomes over to fusion power, and channel the magical energies of it’s internal biome into defensive wards, cloaking fields, and acceleration. They are neither fast nor maneuverable – but their top acceleration of a little over 1/10’th g suffices to reach cruising speed (usually about 4% of the speed of light) in a little over four months. They’ll usually restock on hydrogen on the way out – whether from a handy gas giant or from the ice in an Oort cloud – but that’s really just to keep their reserves topped up.

Upon arrival in a new solar system, an Arith Vaya will trade some genetic information with any Arith Vaya currently there. If none are, then it will survey any living planets and archive genetic records of their biospheres, greet any local sapients, and spend a few thousand years there. If there are usable planets but no local biospheres, and it happens to be carrying the records for a biosphere which needs to be re-established due to some disaster affecting its original system, it will do so during that time.

The wandering period will generally last one to two million years – enough time to visit hundreds of solar systems and to cover tens of thousands of light years.

Eventually a surviving Arith Vaya will decide to “settle down” in a suitable solar system with at least one other Arith Vaya there for a time – long enough to have a few children anyway. Afterwards they may resume wandering, or – if the system hosts a sapient species or is often visited by sapient species – elect to more or less “retire” there, remaining to serve as diplomatic waystations and assist those sapients if they inflict too much damage to their planet’s ecosystems (which isn’t too uncommon). If worst comes to worst… carrying a colony to another solar system will preserve a lot more information about the original culture than reconstructing the species.

Along the way the Arith Vaya will have had plenty of time to go through their own archives, repair damaged sections, and study the material in considerable depth. That still won’t make it quickly accessible, but at least the communicative sub-brains will have a better idea of what is in there and how far back it goes.

Adult Arith Vaya aren’t especially talkative, but do seem to feel that facilitating interstellar diplomacy is a part of their purpose. Outside of using the devices their creators designed into them the Arith Vaya aren’t very technological either; they have their purposes, are well equipped to fulfill them, and they need little more. Their origins lie a very long ways back in their archives indeed – but they will usually tell visitors who ask that they were created by a long gone species called the “P’tol” in token of a hundred million year alliance some billions of years ago. Given their slow perception of time… it will probably not be time to follow after the P’tol for many more billions of years.

The youngest Arith Vaya and one of it’s parents are likely to be leaving the solar system in the next century or two; Earth… is entering an extremely high-risk period, and it’s important that the backups be well out of range of any major disasters.

Tagged: Background, Champions, Role Playing Game, RPG, Super Hero Groups]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/aurora-ward-research-the-arith-vaya/feed/1ThothChampions – Archmage Belramoshttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/champions-archmage-belramos/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/champions-archmage-belramos/#commentsThu, 11 Sep 2014 04:47:52 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20849]]>Like all imaginal beings, Demons want humanities attention, not it’s destruction. Their children become heroes as often as they become villains – and that is just fine with them. Heroes, after all, are very public, get a lot of headlines, and rarely WANT to take over whatever astral realm their demonic parent occupies – or even to draw very much on infernal powers. For a demon… heroic offspring are often a far better “investment” than monsters and dark mages.

Haagenti isn’t one of the more threatening “archdemons” either. He makes men wise by instructing them “in every art”, is a master of transformation and alchemical magic, and possesses formidable psychic powers – mostly telepathy. He usually appears as a muscular winged man, with the head of a bull and golden horns, but can adopt other forms. Truly exceptional students may be tutored for free, but most will pay a price – and those who are truly stupid may wind up learning to be a beast of some sort instead.

Sienna Fenwick summoned Haagenti to help out with her college studies and wound up paying sexually – which seemed like a fairly light price at the time. When she married Brandon Goswick a few years later on, she never realized that her firstborn would have two fathers.

Cameron Goswick was brilliantly intelligent and remarkably magically talented – enough so to graduate from basic education two years early and to earn a full scholarship to Cambridge. Shortly after he earned a research fellowship there Haagenti dropped by to present him with a guard dog (an idiot athlete who REALLY should not have summoned Haagenti) – and awakened his full demonic powers, along with the reddish skin, modest horns, and other signs which proclaimed his heritage.

Cameron could easily disguise those – but was somewhat unsure of what to do with his new powers. It seemed a pity NOT to use them – but going along with the usual stereotypes of “demonspawn” was not an attractive notion!

Cameron eventually – and rather cautiously – became a fairly minor hero, dealing with minor mystical menaces (mostly on his own) under the name Belramos. He did, however, fairly often act as a magical consultant for United Kingdom teams that found themselves short of magi – and was somewhat nonplused to discover a bit later that Haagenti… did not mind a bit. Their disagreements are primarily academic, rather than violent – and Belramos fully intends to keep it that way. Sure, it’s a bother to try to undo the transformations Haagenti inflicts on poor students – but it’s not like people accidentally or involuntarily summon Haagenti to tutor them.

Cameron more or less stumbled into the role of Archmage. He’d only been involved in the selection-contest to interfere with Red Jack – otherwise known as Jack the Ripper, a semi-immortal necromancer who had (for many centuries) used Blood Magic to work effective bindings on magical menaces in the Rho-Field. While there were worse menaces – and the things Jack bound would generally have killed a lot more people then he did to bind them – he would still have made a MOST unsuitable Archmage.

For good or ill, however, virtually all the other competent magi in the running managed to disqualify themselves in one way or another – leaving Cameron / Belramos the Archmage by default. Still, if he’s going to be the new Archmage… he wants to do it well.

2d6 60-Point Available Equipment Allowance Aid (Fade/week, Max. 60); Range: 0; Affects: Single Power of Special Effect, +¼; Extra Time: 1 hour, -2½; Only activates in armories, labs, or between outings: -1½; Personal Only: -1; Difficult to Dispel: ×2, +¼; Increased END: ×10, -4; Only to GM-specified items: -2; Actual point total of equipment available limited by GM decision.: -2; Must actually locate gear, availability is not automatic.: -2; This allows a character to haul along 60 CP worth of gear.

30

6

2d6 Aid (Ritual Magic) (Fade/turn, Max. 90); Range: 0; Trigger: Changeable, +½; Points fade instantly after power used: -½; Fragile Focus: -¼; Gestures: Instant Power, -¼; Incantation: Instant Power, -¼; Increased END: ×10, -4; Costs END: -½; Side Effects: 60/All, -1; Visible (Easily detected by other mystics at fairly long ranges): -¼; Requires exotic locations or components at the option of the game master: Half, -1; Affects: Single Power of Special Effect, +¼; Charges: 1, -1¼; Recoverable Charges: -2 lev; Extra Time: 5 min., -2; Focus: Obvious Accessible, -1; Maximum of three rituals per day and seven prepared effects.: -1; Requires Skill Roll (using a relevant magical knowledge once per ritual): -½; Ritual Magic requires a bag full of odd components (starting off with candles, chalk, parchment, incense, a brazier and charcoal, pens and ink, odd bits of jewelry, a wand, a knife, a mirror, holy water, oil, and a bell, even before getting into the odder stuff required for particular rituals), an hour of chanting, gesturing, and fooling about with the materials, and a skill check with a relevant knowledge skill. If you succeed, you’ve built up the power to be used – which can either be unleashed immediately, or be saved to be unleashed with a short invocation later. If you fail, the magic goes wild, with unpredictable (but generally bad) effects.
Ritual effects can have active point totals of up to 40 points if prepared anywhere, 60 if prepared at a minor nexus, 80 if prepared at a major nexus, and 90 if you have an appropriate extradimensional source of power to draw on.

Personally, Belramos is a gracious host and – fairly obviously – is far more a scholar than an action hero.

Tagged: Background, Champions, Role Playing Game, RPG, Super Hero Groups]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/champions-archmage-belramos/feed/1ThothChampions – Ugyen Satera, the Elder Archmagehttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/champions-ugyen-satera-the-elder-archmage/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/champions-ugyen-satera-the-elder-archmage/#commentsTue, 09 Sep 2014 04:55:23 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20846]]>Ugyen Satera is dead – but as Archmage of Earth from 1235 AD to 2014 AD he had a considerable impact on history, and he isn’t necessarily out of reach through transtemporal effects or by astral travel into the realms of the dead.

Ugyen was apparently born in China, sometime around 980 AD – where he studyied Taoism and Magic (both personal and ambient), eventually becoming a Taoist “Immortal” – drastically slowing his aging process, but not stopping it. He apparently acted as a wandering teacher and counselor for many years – but after the death of Archmage Samudragupta in battle with Tyrannon, Ugyen was eventually drawn to the empty sanctum of the Archmage – where, after many years of study, he succeeded Samudragupta as Archmage of Earth. While his powers were limited by the Rho-Field, Ugyen served as Earth’s primary guardian for many centuries – by all reports a kindly and generous one.

Unfortunately, the rise of magic as the Earth exited the Rho-Field occurred during Ugyen’s extreme old age, when his powers were already failing – which both greatly limited his ability to intervene and cost him his own chosen successor. That disaster forced Ugyen to hang around after his own death to coordinate the search for a new Archmage.

Here he is at the peak of his power as it would have been outside the Rho-Field – at the human limit of 650 points. His successor has a long ways to go to match him.

Tagged: Background, Champions, Character Sheets, Role Playing Game, RPG, Super Hero Groups]]>https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/champions-ugyen-satera-the-elder-archmage/feed/1ThothThe Chronicles Of Heavenly Artifice CLXXX – A Fair Withdrawal and Leon Highhttps://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxx-a-fair-withdrawal-and-leon-high/
https://ruscumag.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/the-chronicles-of-heavenly-artifice-clxxx-a-fair-withdrawal-and-leon-high/#commentsSun, 07 Sep 2014 04:24:10 +0000http://ruscumag.wordpress.com/?p=20843]]>Aikiko had returned to the fair, well before it’s conclusion… dealing with Ruki, Leon, and a battle with an Elder Abyssal had taken up surprisingly little time – especially in relationship to the hedgerows, which apparently were running a bit slow this week. During the drive back she’d realized that – if she used travel thaumaturgy, and some luck manipulation, and a few other things – she could drive as fast as she wanted to. Drive like a madwoman? No! She’d drive like an Exalt!

The Fair, in fact, was somewhat livened up by a number of people with new forms – but Aikiko had pretty much fulfilled her responsibilities already. She had no idea how she wound up holding a deep-fried twinkie with sugar and chocolate syrup though… Blasted subconscious. Still, aside from it being REALLY unhealthy, it didn’t seem to have any serious magic on it… nothing but a minor charm to make it taste like an ideal desert and encourage the thought of having another. It wasn’t much more than a whispered suggestion though. “That was GREAT! I want another!”

Oh well… It wouldn’t be a Fair without eating a few suspicious fried things. It was APPALLINGLY sweet for an adult – but the kids loved theirs. After she recovered from sugar overload she headed back to the inn to buy Samelin. There were numerous blandishments on the way out of the Fair – but no compulsions or anything like that. There was an unfortunate fellow being hanged for major violations of the fair rules (and stabbing another man) – which gave her a bit of a jolt – but that wass his bad luck – and stupidity. The official pronouncing sentence was a bit odd though; it looked like an earth spirit made from coal and ruby. Apparently one of the Fairwards, and evidently quite a powerful creature! Best not to get on his (?) bad side then!

The kids were pretty quiet for some time. That sort of thing was always sobering – especially for the girl. Samelin… had seen it before, and behaved himself. Slave he might be, but he wanted to live. The girl was a LOT less experienced of course.

Aikiko… was more than happy to leave. Hanging was harsh, but this wasn’t exactly modern society, and that was a powerful spirit. The roads were far less occupied at the moment, although there were a variety of fantastic creatures about. She was, however, shortly confronted by a pack of trolls, demanding that she pay tribute if she wished to pass! They were armed with… swords, axes, one submachine gun, some pistols, and a crossbow. Not bad for around here – but no real menace to her even WITHOUT summoning Skoll.

Still, there was some chance that they’d endanger the kids – and while it was obvious that they’d LIKE gossamer, artifacts, talismans, or magical materials… they were well aware that most travelers had nothing but small quantities of money – which was what they were demanding.

And it wasn’t like she had any shortage of money.

The Trolls kept their word – as might be expected from fey creatures. She paid, she was free to go and had safe-conduct through their territory.

The kids livened up quickly enough once they were away from the Fair and the bandits… the Hanging Gardens had been VERY impressive – a real marvel of fey ingenuity. And such wealth! (Although it was fairly obvious to Aikiko that that had scared them a bit too. It was dangerous for slave-children to be around someone who could buy them out of petty cash on a whim… Well, soon they wouldn’t have to worry about that!)

There were a few other travelers about, although apparently the Blatant Beast didn’t want to risk another encounter with Spartacus’s Mighty Blade… The small band of gypsies, however, were equipped with some surprisingly modern stuff. No doubt they crossed the dimensional borders as easily as the geographic ones. It looked like… an essence-powered generator (nice and quiet), electric lamps for their caravans, a couple of the kids had electronic games, there were probably guns on some of the men to go with the classical belt knives – definite boundary-crossers there – and they had a prison-wagon along. Evidently slaves…

The gypsies cheerily offered to read her fortune and sell her good-luck charms! Hah, she’d been just about to ask for her fortune!

The routine was quite classic – but they wanted to know if she would prefer palmistry, cards, crystal gazing, or the deluxe package of all three?

She went for the full package… and there were mysterious smoke and strange lights, with no trace of magic in use! Strange powers were in play! (Or at least so many natives of the Hedgerows would have thought… technological tricks to impress the natural magic-users… Aikiko thought that that was pretty clever and appreciated the effort!)

And the dice favored the old gypsy seer, with eleven successes on ten dice.

(Seer) “Ah, young woman! There is great power wrapped around you and within you, a darkness deeper than the night and a light brighter than the dawn. Before you… lies a dark passage, a place I cannot see at all… once malign, now empty… but within it something terrible rises. There shall be unexpected allies though, powers that are and are not of Dream. You shall confront them not upon the Earth or in the Hedgerows, but in the living land, where the fisher king brings healing. Whether you shall triumph or fall stands upon the edge of a knife, and what will come to pass I cannot tell.”

There was a pause.

(Seer, returning to normal) “Phew! what is UP with ye girl? Mostly I just git which farmboy tis opin to lift yer skirts!”

Aikiko considered… the power wrapped around and in her was probably Skoll. The dark passage was likely the Memory of the Void, where the Neverborn Kaiju were nearing completion. The powers of and not of Dream were likely Leon, Charles, and any other allies who showed up… The living land and the fisher king? Most likely Yu-Shan and Charles. Of course… there was the cloak, the exaltation, neverbody souls, links to mechagodzilla and the kaiju manses, a cargo of ghosts, and several other realms to make things hazy! It had been a remarkable feat for her to see anything at all in that mess!

(Seer) “But ye… ye are like a lens, a thousand lines of destiny shine thru!”

(Aikiko) “I’ll tell you later, Samelin.” (Smiling) “We should get back to the inn soon. I need to talk to your master – and I’ve got a of baggage – a nd some good things to go with it.”

(Seer) “Hrm! Whatever it tis, I be thinkin that ye be on the right side of it – and those coins of yours say as much… There mayn’t be much that we kin do ter elp out, but we do have some trinkets and slavies and such if’n ye stand in need of such things!”

(Aikiko) “Well, you never know what will be handy! Trinkets are good!”

It was thaumaturgic stuff of course – but more sources never hurt and they did have a fairly wide variety of Talismans. She picked up a could of walkaways and a luck talisman; her Heavenly Salary gave her some pretty impressive resources on Earth. .. They let her have talismans and such at cost – which was a major concession for Gypsies. The slaves were available cheap as well; they had nine at the moment; mostly runaways scooped up from the edges of the hedgerows, street kids, and similar. They disappeared all the time anyway – which helped explain why they were so cheap – along with two who’d been sold by their parents in exchange for magical favors. One of those was REALLY upset; his parents had lots of money!

Well, she could readily afford it… She took them all- and ask that one kid about his parents. According to him… they were a corporate manager type and his socializing wife. He couldn’t imagine why they had turned him over to these scruffy gypsies!

Oh that was just charming… She might have to make some arrangements to annoy them. It didn’t sound like they’d needed to sell him to survive – which meant greed, and probably for more than mere money. Sure, the kid was a bit arrogant and entitled – junior preppie style – but there wasn’t really anything wrong with him outside of whatever weird compulsion was making him be obedient at the moment, and if being a bit arrogant and entitled was a crime… well, most of Heaven should go in the slave pens! As it was, he was lucky to be in HER hands! She wasn’t going to chain him to a task or let him be munched on by Raksha!

Hm… Aikiko hadn’t thought about that before – but working certain types of spells thaumaturgically – such as eliminating the current CEO and taking his place – would require special prices.

And the gypsies had been paid quite a lot of money AND the boy, which pretty much confirmed that.

Aikiko headed for the inn – while the Gypsies headed off to dip back into the outside world for more cargo. Slaves were selling very well these days! (Most of them, of course, to be marked up and resold to Charles. Business was good with him around… Perhaps she shouldn’t tell Charles that increasing the demand was just going to get more snatched. Oh well, at least the ones that got snatched were off the streets and fed).

The kids were no trouble. It looked like they’d be obedient for at least a couple of weeks, until the compulsions had worn off.

(Aikiko) “You’ll have to tell me where. I know someone who’d be interested. Speaking of which, I’d like to take Samelin off your hands… And this kid will be fine. My associate has ways of handling him.”

(Innkeeper) “Walsht, er boy be ell-traind fer his jobs an I be use to avin im abut ter plce. Ud ave to be a fair offr!”

Oh drat! The man could see that she’d put artifacts on two of the slave-children! Now he knew that she was rich!

Oh well. She couldn’t leave poor Samelin to spend centuries more as a stable boy. Perhaps some minor artifacts that he could use in running his inn? Perhaps some kind of cooking talisman would do. An enchanted frying pan?

It popped up on request; the Mardi Gras Raksha could pull that sort of thing out of the Wyld lapping about them… pretty much at will.

(Aikiko) “It’s nonstick, heats itself, doesn’t require a mitt, and never burns the food! Will this work?”

Bother it. That was actually fair enough. Samelin… probably knew every task there was around the inn by heart and could be rented out as a guide, just as she’d rented him! He’d… be worth a LOT more than some street child somebody had snatched out of london’s back alleys and put up for sale.

Aikiko wound up paying a good deal more than she’d thought she would (including a trivial artifact that would keep the stables clean and the animals fed) – but it really didn’t matter; it had taken mere moments for Charles or his servants to produce the stuff… That was really rather… unpleasant. It ought to take more than a few moments of casual effort to purchase someone’s entire LIFE.

To his credit, the innkeeper was actually be a bit sad to see Samelin go; he was very used to having the kid about the place. Still… he’d been paid more than well enough to buy and train another and the boys work was covered anyway. Aikiko… had to admit that the innkeeper was pleasant enough for the culture, and was reasonably considerate in his own way… The place had been quite interesting to visit, but there was so much to be done outside the hedges!

Samelin was quite grateful; the innkeeper hadn’t been a bad master – but two centuries in the stables was quite enough!

Aikiko made a note; that was indeed enough for anybody – and she’d make sure that he didn’t do that in Aden unless he wants to – not that that should be any problem; his effective age was quite low enough for Aden to default to sending him to school. That was only fair anyway! The poor kid had obviously never had a chance to see what he could be before – and Aden was a fascinating place to study in!

Meanwhile, Leon had a quick visit of his own to make. He HAD said that he’d stop by – so a strange mist rose throughout the high school, leading to a certain amount of non-supernatural people nodding off and bringing strange, wyld, dreams! It was fairly close to graduation anyway, and “Senioritis” was not unexpected in late spring!

He headed for the Computer Science Labs, where young Dawai was supposed to be studying at the moment – where almost all of the computer lab, including the teacher, had nodded off. Leon heard the quiet sounds of a computer game in the back. There was a cloaking effect running – but it was easy enough to pierce! The player… was an intent, wiry Asian teenager – it looked like Chinese ancestry.

He strolled on back!

(Leon) “And hello there young man!”

(Dawai, looking up) “Whoa!” (Looking at the lab) “Whoa. Nice trick.”

He was surprisingly impressed. No doubt his powers didn’t include much along such lines at the moment and he had little experience with others.

(Leon) “No reason to let them remember much except a few wild daydreams.”

(Dawai) “Anyway… Thank you for coming to meet me!”

(Leon) “A small enough favor! After all, you DID give me an amusing offering!”

(Dawai) “Heh heh… So where is he now?”

(Leon, with mild surprise) “What you wish to see him?” (He cheerily opened up one of the linked chancels) “Right this way!”

(Dawai) “This is going to be GOOD.”

Leon showed him the kitty-slaveboy-pet, dressed in his collar.

(Dawai) “Bwahaha! Here, have a yarn ball!” (As he tossed on to Felix)

Felix chased it – and Dawai exerted some minor telekinetic effect to keep it away from him. And there was begging!

(Felix) “Mrrow?”

Leon…. was keeping an eye on Dawai; how he reacted to his “enemy” once he was up close to him – and could see that the boy was blatantly cat-trained, feline-mutated, and fixed, would be somewhat revealing…

(Dawai) “C’mon, chase after it!”

And in the chase, Felix did indeed get closer and rub against him like any other cat would.

(Dawai) “Wha… wow. Okay, you get the yarn. I’m going to talk to Leon, okay?”

Hm… Dawai showed no apparent regrets – or thoughts that this might be a bit disproportionate. Fortunately… that did not seem to be the arrogance and superiority of a classical supernatural lordling… Further observation was in order!

(Leon) “Young Felix makes quite a good kitty, amusing to have around!”

(Dawai) “Whoa. That’s more than I was expecting. I thought you’d just turn him into something silly. Not (and pointing to the “fixed” portion) THAT. I was going to ask you how you did it… but I know I’d get out of hand with that.”

(Leon) “Only to be expected for a pet! Surely you were not expecting him to produce superior offspring? But you seem… much concerned with getting out of hand. Has that been a problem for you?”

(Dawai, thinking) “Well… Yeah, I guess you would think that way about a pet. And I’ve got a lot of grudges.”

(Leon) “Ah? well, if you wish… How many others do you wish removed?”

Dawai, looked quite conflicted! Leon was clearly a powerful supernatural being who could help him out, but he was squeamish about the potential costs – although it was obvious enough to Leon that his cup grave would be average at best; he clearly was not oriented to Compassion!

(Leon) “He can, but it would be inconvenient! Bathrooms are much less trouble… Who else has offended?”

(Dawai) “Okay… Faculty would make too much trouble, but there’s some more students I’d like to see humbled. I can get you some really good computers I made for the favor.”

(Leon) “It sounds fair enough!”

Dawai… came up with a list. It looked like… a couple of girls who had spurned him, a member of the track team, and a fellow nerdy type.

(Leon) “Are you wanting a few young female playthings?”

(Dawai) “Don’t transform Ravi (the fellow nerd), okay? I just want his to be temporary.”

(Leon) “Well, I shall think of something!”

(Dawai) “What are we talking about with playthings? Can I get hot alien girls? I’m pretty sure I chatted some girl who wasn’t from Earth last week.”

(Leon) “Oh, I was thinking of a few youthful princesses… I am overstocked! Aliens would take a few days more!”

(Dawai) “That’s what I mean when I say these computers are great! The weird IPs are the best. And I can wait for aliens.”

(Leon) “Ah, you would like a few then? Step this way…”

There were plenty of extras from among the royal family hangers-on… Dawai did prioritize beauty, but he also looked for the ones who seemed to be reasonably intelligent – or at least willing to learn. He seemed to be using analytic charms to determine learning ability…

(Dawai, somewhat wowed) “So Saudi Arabia WAS you!”

(Leon) “Why not? It seemed like a suitable realm in need of a new government!”

(Dawai) “Man, I wish I could do something like that, but something in me just yells ‘no!’ Maybe if I got more people to help out. I’ve just got to settle these scores first.”

Hrm… the boy was exceptionally petty at the moment! Evidently a combination of being the very middle son in a large family – and thus, often overlooked – and being clumsy and physically weak before his Exaltation. There was quite a bit of bullying in that past. The only reasons that he wasn’t a potential school shooter were his strong will to overcome, his fascination with computers, and his desire to stay out of jail. At the moment he was driven by revenge against those whom had wronged him. After that… He’d like to ensure his own success and make sure that others didn’t get overlooked Under it all, he’d like everyone decent to feel wanted. Unfortunately, against those he DIDN’T currently consider decent… He thought that “Felix’s” fate was quire appropriate. There was a world-body. Not very developed, deva-free, and a bit dark – but present.

That wasn’t necessarily too bad. The boy was just unable to see past his own pain to make allowances for human follies. He was likely to be hard on an ever-increasing number of people as his influence spread too; virtually everyone was a jerk soemtimes, and he seemed to have no understanding of that fact. Not a “bad kid” – but, like a lot of kids, self-absorbed.

(Leon) “What did the other “nerd” do?”

(Dawai, while admiring one of the princesses) “What, Ravi? He said there was no way I was chatting with aliens. I want you to help me prove they exist. Maybe make him one too, for a few hours.”

(Leon) “Well, that should become much more plausible in a couple of months… And you like her?”

(Dawai) “She’s got about as much education as I expected, but her mind’s okay. I can fix the education really fast.”

(Leon) “Any of the others catch your eye?”

(Dawai) “Several. I need some people to manage certain things that need it. I think.”

He pointed them out. Not the most beautiful girls – although they were all good-looking – but all fairly bright.

(Leon) “Very well then! You girls are now the property and concubines of your master here! You are now bound to him, to serve and please him as he wills…” (to Dawai) “Will you be needing an eunuch attendant or two?”

(Dawai) “Wha… I just want girls!” (Rubbing his chin) “Though, if you have robots, that’d be great.”

(Leon) “Not my speciality I fear!”

(Dawai, shrugging) “Eh. I guess I’ll have to program a security AI… And put in a harem.”

Leon made a note to subtly push Dawai towards a more generous view of things. The girls would probably have some influence. Hmph! He hadn’t been expecting to have to deal with child-raising for some time to come! Much less a Night Caste Guardian, though skewed toward computer security and espionage instead of the more traditional variety. Still, as a teenage boy… a harem would distract him for quite some time and give him a more generous outlook on things! He did seem awfully ready to go have fun… And if he was even slightly thoughtless, there was nothing like a few offspring to broaden someone’s experiences. All the concubines were enhanced to be excellent concubines, and quite fertile!